Love is an Open Door
by Kuann
Summary: After Elsa's 16th birthday, Anna is fed up with her sister's silence. Distraught, Elsa tries to escape the prison that is her life - and finds a cell mate instead. The story of how Elsa once came to tell her secret, and why she never did again. A canonical prequel.
1. 1: Happy Birthday

**Chapter 1: Happy Birthday**

_Tap. Tap. Tap tap. Tap._

Elsa squeezed her quill at each knock. She had become intimately familiar with that rhythm, simultaneously loving and dreading it. The person that she cared for the most in all the world. The person that made her feel so awful that she wanted to curl up and cry.

Anna had arrived.

"Elsa?"

After so many years of barely seeing her sister's face, Elsa still imagined the tiny little five-year-old of her memories. Her sister's voice had changed, but the little redhead with stubby pigtails and tiny feet would forever be what she pictured behind that door. She would also picture Anna's watery, disappointed eyes, the slight pinch of her cheeks, and downward curve of her mouth as she tried not to cry with disappointment. Elsa used to look at her through the keyhole of her room, just to get a glimpse, but that practice had become unbearable years ago.

"It's me, Anna. I just, uh, I wanted to wish you a happy birthday!"

_You still remember?_ Elsa thought. She didn't deserve Anna, not after all these years.

She'd tried everything. At first she would just say that she couldn't. It was the closest thing to the truth. She had homework to do, and Mama and Papa would kill her if she didn't get it done.

But Anna did not give up. She asked if she could help. So Elsa tried being polite. She would rather be alone right now, she had a good book that she couldn't put down. It felt like a little bit of a lie, but she did want to be alone sometimes, unable to muster the will to be strong for company.

But Anna did not give up. She wanted to see what book it was. So Elsa tried being mean. She didn't want to be with Anna, Anna _specifically_. She would tell her to just go away, to stop annoying her. It was the biggest lie in the world, but maybe if Anna thought she was a terrible person, she wouldn't _want _to be with her anymore, and she wouldn't feel so rejected.

But Anna did not give up. She would come back the next day, sliding poorly-drawn apology letters under the door. Elsa would read them over and over again, crying into them and freezing them and crying and freezing and crying and freezing. Until they snapped. So she told the only truth she could: she ignored Anna. And that's what she would do today, staring at her letters until she gave up and went away.

"I, uh, I brought you something!" Anna continued. She was nervous.

_Oh, Anna…_ Elsa thought. _You don't need to be nervous around me. I love everything you say._

But she couldn't say that, or else she wouldn't be ignoring her anymore. And then Anna would have hope, and she would cling to that hope for months, causing them both more pain than either could handle.

"They're chocolates from the kitchen. I st… I asked the chef for them. Mama said you like chocolate… just like me!" Her self-affirming laugh made the corners of Elsa's mouth rise. She covered it with her glove, struggling to keep inside the insane urge to laugh. It wasn't even that funny, really. But it _was._

"But there's one - one condition!" Anna stammered a bit as she shifted to a more authoritative tone. "You have to come out here and eat them with me!"

Elsa winced. She tried to concentrate on something else, dipping her quill back into the inkpot. Seconds passed, however, and she could think of no way to continue her work. All she could focus on was the crushing silence.

"Come on, Elsa! You only turn sixteen once!"

_I know. _Anna knew that, too; all her birthdays had come and gone, with neither gift nor acknowledgement from her older sister. She'd wanted to, spent hours fantasizing about what she'd get her the next year, when her powers were under control. She'd been doing that for the last eight years.

"Elsa! Elsa, please, at least answer me!"

_Pat_. Something liquid dropped onto the parchment. Elsa raised a hand to her eyes. She hadn't realized she was crying. When her finger touched her lashes, however, she remembered the gloves. They deadened everything. She felt only fabric against her cheek. She could not sense the texture of paper, the warmth of skin, or the moistness of her eyes. The world was dead to her touch.

She looked down at the parchment to discover the real culprit: a drop of ink had splattered across the page. She thrust the quill back into the pot and left it there, staring at it as if it had stung her.

"You know what?"

Elsa was struck by the tone of her sister's voice. It wasn't frustration; it was anger.

"I have _tried_, Elsa! I've been patient, I've said I'm sorry! _What am I supposed to do?!_" There was a padded thudding against the door as what could only be chocolates became projectiles for the incensed redhead. "I say we can do what _you_ want, and you tell me to go away! I make sure I don't offend you, and you ignore me! I ask how your day was, and you tell me you want to be _alone_!"

Elsa screwed her eyes shut, trying to block out Anna's voice. If she succeeded, it would only make way for the crackling of frost as it crept across her desk

"What did I ever do to you?! Just tell me that, and I will go away forever, just like you want!"

_Anna, stop, _please… Elsa pressed her face into her palms. Her fingertips dug into her forehead. The crackling of frost would not abate, and neither would Anna's shouts. She didn't want to conceal. She wanted to feel. She wanted to _scream_.

"If you think I'm annoying, that's fine! You're right! I can't keep books on my head, I slurp my soup sometimes! I'm _not_ as good of a princess as you!"

Elsa lifted her eyes, widened as they were, to the door. To the girl behind it.

_No, Anna…_ she thought, horrified. _That's not true! That's not what I mea-_

"But if that's what you think…" Anna's voice became tearful as it rose in volume. "Just say it _to my FACE!"_

Even the frost had frozen. Nothing moved. She had no words, no thoughts. She didn't know what to do.

The door quaked with Anna's kick. Then she sniffled, and followed with something infinitely worse.

"I HATE YOU!"

Their mother and father came seconds later. They asked Anna what on Earth was going on. Anna said all of those horrible things over again, except now she was asking them if they were true, because _they_ could talk to Elsa, because she didn't hate _them_.

It took them almost an hour to calm her down. All those years of isolation felt like a second in comparison. By the time the hall finally quieted, she was far past the point of writing, or reading, or even staring at the grandfather clock in the corner. Its hands had frozen only five minutes in.

The bed, however, could only freeze so much. So Elsa curled up on it and cried herself to sleep.

* * *

><p>Her father's knock woke her. She had no idea how much time had passed, but his knock was just as distinctive as Anna's. <em>Tap. Tap.<em>

Unlike the past few years, however, he did not let himself in.

"Elsa?"

She did not respond. Words felt inadequate. Why reply? Why do anything at all? Nothing helped. She was just as trapped as she was when she was eight. As when she had locked herself in here. No… not herself…

"Are you alright?"

It was _him_.

"_No._"

The anger in her voice sounded strange. She'd never sounded that way before, especially toward her father. But… it felt _good_.

"May I come in?"

Elsa balled her fists and looked up at the door. "_No._"

The meltwater that had collected on her bed began to freeze again.

"Elsa, listen to me-"

"No! I don't want you to come in!" she repeated. "I want to get _out_! I want to see my sister! Why can't she know I have powers?!"

"Elsa, please, getting angry won't-"

"Why can't I be angry? Anna can! You can! Why don't _I_ get that right?"

Ice began to crawl up the walls. She didn't care. The cold never bothered her. Why _should _she care? Why _did_ she have to stay in her room?

"It was an _accident, _Papa! I hurt Anna _once_! How many years am I supposed to stay in here because of that?!"

"Elsa, you need to _control_ yourself!"

"_No_! _Listen to me_!" She was crying again. The tears stung her swollen cheeks. They rolled off her chin, forming little tufts of icicles where they fell. "I want to go _outside_! I want to tell my sister why I've had to break her heart all these years! Just to tell her that it's _not_! _My_! _FAULT_!"

She jammed her finger at the ground - and then it happened. Ice lanced outward from her feet, enveloping her in a ring of azure spears. A few struck the side of her room, piercing the wallpaper.

She stared at the macabre creation as its growth slowed, then stopped completely. Her heart was pounding, but not with anger anymore. _Horror_. Horror at what might have happened if she'd had this tantrum with her father in the room. Horror as she remembered with visceral certainty why she had to remain inside: it was _very_ much her fault.

Details came in fragments. The door snapped open. Ice flaked from its hinges. Her father rushed toward her. He couldn't come close. She knew that. But he _was _coming close. He took one look at the ice spears. Only one. His gaze set. He started to climb over them. His mouth moved. She didn't register it.

"No!" she gasped finally, as if awakening from a dream. "You can't! I could hurt y-"

"No, you can't," he said. The wording was firm, undebatable, but his tone was soft. She didn't know what to do when he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her close. He never did that. "Nothing can hurt me more than seeing you in pain. Nothing."

She just kept staring past him, at the open door he'd left behind. She let his warmth envelop her while she relearned the sensation of contact.

"It's alright, Elsa. It's alright now."

She closed her eyes and buried her head into his shoulder with dry sobs. She wrapped her arms around him, pulled herself tighter, just to feel that humanness again. To know that this one person understood everything - the pressures of succeeding the throne, her powers. There were no secrets between them.

Except for one.

"It's alright, Elsa."

It wasn't. That was the one thing only she knew.

* * *

><p><strong>Hello everyone. Hope you liked this first chapter. Let me set a few ground rules  principles.**

**1. This is a prelude to my main Frozen story arc, _The Ice God_. There is a plotline in there that requires more setup than I can comfortably fit inside of the work itself, so I decided that I will create this story to flesh out that topic.**

**2. I will be posting chapters on this story until it is finished. It's not going to be very long, as the idea is to lay a foundation and move back to _The Ice God._**

**3. I do not own Frozen, or any of the non-original characters featured in this story (Elsa, Anna, their parents, etc).**

**4. I do not have an update schedule, but I do have a writing schedule. I will update each chapter when I feel it is meaty and polished enough.**

**5. I like reviews, though I will never try to force them out of my readers. If you find anything confusing or off-putting, however, don't just abandon the story. Tell me why you're abandoning it, then peace out. It will help me improve and it will help me get a sense of where my readership is in relation to myself. Remember, I already know (most of) the answers! I need to make sure everyone else is following.**

**That should be everything! Enjoy the rest of the story.**

**-K**


	2. 2: Humpty Dumpty

**Chapter 2: Humpty Dumpty**

He left after only a few minutes. He'd stood with her, swaying her back and forth until the sobs stopped. Ultimately, there was nothing else he could do - she knew that, possibly more than he did. What could they talk about? What would that accomplish?

So, in the end, she'd asked to be alone, and he'd granted her wish.

She hadn't been honest with him; she was not alright. She'd only said that so that he'd leave her alone. She wasn't angry with him anymore. She just felt like a monster. Seeing her father and a ring of lethal ice spikes in the same room made her nauseated.

The day drew on, and the sun traced its inevitable arc across the sky. She did nothing but watch the ice melt, moving to a chair when there was no longer a dry place to sit. She couldn't call the servants - how could she explain a flooded room on the second floor? So she just sat, and waited.

It continued this way into the night. Mostly. Sometimes, however, she'd remember that horrifying feeling, the _what-if_ sensation. Her mind would jump to the ghastly futures that might await her if she lost control, even for a second. It made her sick. Her entire body would tense and her eyes would smart as the emotions kept rushing at her, refusing to yield no matter how she tried to force them down. No more ice came, but that did not help with the ache in her heart.

And, through it all, she was alone.

Darkness fell upon Arendelle. Only the lights of hearth and home remained. Elsa watched them go out one by one, unable to sleep, until there was only blackness. The moon had forsaken her as well, tucked behind a curtain of clouds. She could scarcely see her own fingers now, but still she could not find the will to move. There was comfort in the dark. She could simply _be_. The gloves, the misshapen remains of her icy outburst - they were invisible, unreal, and nearly forgotten.

Still, she knew the ice was still there, that her powers had not abandoned her in the night. So she stood, her legs stiffened by the hours of disuse, and fumbled about for her candle.

Its orange light cast ghastly fingers across the remains of her room. Everything was a shade darker than it should have been, soaked by meltwater. She knelt down, pressing her palm into the carpet. Water rose around it from the pressure, encircling her fingers. She waited for a moment as the water penetrated her gloves, cool and bracing, a thrill of sensation for hands that had been deprived of true contact for so long.

Cold, she could still feel.

Elsa looked up at the rest of her chambers. Of the frost, only the ring of icicles remained. They were stumps now, but still recognizable. She saw the punctures where they had torn through the wall. They were miniature abysses, torn wallpaper hanging about their edges like ruined flesh.

Suddenly the walls of her room felt closer. Too close. The air felt thick. Her heart began to pound, but she had no idea why. The creeping whine of frost followed soon after. Elsa gasped, gaze snapping to her feet. A halo of ice was spreading out from the hem of her dress.

_Don't feel! You're just making it worse!_ she told herself, but the frost did not abate. Her heart and breath rose by themselves. She couldn't breathe. The candle fell from her hands. She watched it fall, knowing that she had lost it but unable to do anything. Even as her body whipped itself into a panic, her wits slowed to a crawl.

The candle hissed as it hit damp carpet, and then went out. Darkness swooped back upon her as if it had never left. This time, however, it was not a welcome ally. Elsa's heart leaped into her chest. Her body shook. She would die if she stayed here.

She shoved off toward the door. The fact that she was blind was of no consequence; escape was the only priority. She'd just go into the hall. Some new air, _any_ other air, was all she needed.

Something dense and cold caught her shin. She fell forward, landing in the puddle that was her carpet with a _splat_. The cold rushed in a second later, washing her front with liquid relief. It helped slow the pounding of her heart, but the air remained as dense as ever. The crackling of frost only grew louder.

She pushed herself up in a manner very unfitting of a princess and stumbled into the door. Her hand jerked at the doorknob more forcefully than she had intended, but it refused to budge.

_What?!_ Her head was pounding. She needed to get _out!_

"Nngh!" She yanked as hard as she could. Ice snapped, and the knob twisted free. She pulled the door back and practically launched herself into the hall.

And then, it was quiet. Absolutely, _mercifully _quiet. The whine of frost had gone. Slowly, like finding herself after awakening from a nightmare, she looked about. The hall stretched away from her in both directions, empty and black. She gulped down the not-her-room air, then swallowed. Then gulped again, one breath at a time.

_What is wrong with me?_

She gazed searchingly at her palms, trying to find some trace of what ailed her. Of course, even without the dark obscuring her sight, she wouldn't have found anything. She knew that. But _something_ was not the same. Her misery had never been this overwhelming, her half-life this unbearable. Something needed to change.

_I need to get out._

It came to her spontaneously, refusing to fade. A million times before, she had daydreamed of ways to sneak out, just for a little while, without anyone seeing her. She'd never planned to interact with anyone, to put anyone at risk. The hobby of formulating half-baked plans just gave her some relief, some hope that in the future, things would be different.

But she'd always denied them on sight, never expecting they'd be real. This time, however, the spontaneous urge was here to stay.

She could do it. Nobody was awake at this hour. She could throw on a shabby riding cloak and take a horse from the stables. Ride out into the night, so fast that nobody would ever be able to guess that the Phantom Princess of Arendelle was among them. She could return after a few hours, before anybody woke. Nobody would ever know.

_No. This is insane. You need to rest._

She repressed the urge like she always had, turning back to the yawning doorway of her bedchamber. It was pitch-black beyond the doorway, filled with smothering darkness. _Just go in. You can do it. There's _nothing_ in there._

But there was. It wasn't something silly, like a bogeyman or lurking assassin. It was _her_, trapped in a room with nothing but herself. She couldn't imagine anything more dreadful.

"Get it together," she whispered to herself, taking a step toward the door. "You can do this."

The hallway faded to insignificance; it was just her and the door. She was almost there. Her heart began to pound again, her breathing to increase. No matter how her body warned her, however, she pushed on. _Don't give in_.

There was one foe, however, she had no hope against. Even in the dark she could see the white sheen that crept along the door frame, hear the crackling of her power as it raced up to meet her. She whimpered, drawing away from the mane of frost engulfing her door. It stopped, satisfied with her defeat.

Her room seemed even darker with the paleness around its entrance. She could not enter. With that understanding, something changed. Perhaps the fear of her room was unconquerable, but she could still master one fear tonight.

The princess stared into the abyss of the hallway, somehow infinitely more welcoming than the darkness from which she had come. Took a shaky breath. The thought of following that corridor made her heart race in such a different way. She couldn't remember the last time she had had the open sky above her head, the open wonder of the world all around her.

It wouldn't be as she remembered it, but it would _be_. That was enough.

She took one last look at her room. The jagged rim of frost looked like teeth intent on consuming her. Once she went back there, she would never get out.

Princess Elsa never felt assured about anything. She didn't feel assured now. But without knowing why or exactly when, she decided not to wait for assurance. She just took one step. Then another. And another. It wasn't long before she reached a bend in the hall. She turned back, giving her chambers one last, distant look. Her heart was pounding like never before.

She could do this. She _would_ do this. Taking one last breath, she set off toward the stables, leaving the safety and horror of her room behind.

* * *

><p>The stables were surprisingly warm, even for July. A lamp hung peacefully from the main joist. It cast a homely yellow light upon everything, though the dry gold of hay did much to enhance that aesthetic. Horses glanced up at her casually upon entry. If she seemed out of place to them, however, it didn't bother them much; each returned to grazing as if she were a stable boy. To them, she was not a princess, not a sorceress, just another faceless human.<p>

Everything was as she remembered it, save for the size. The castle stables were humbler than when she was eight, though it was more likely that she had grown than that the building had shrunk. That wasn't her only observation. Water had seeped into the front of her dress, darkening the soft purple to a deep violet. She wasn't sure how she felt about that, how it affected her appearance. She didn't want to think about anyone seeing her at all, much less what they thought about her when they did. Fortunately, the stables were not exactly a labyrinth, and she hadn't seen a soul upon entering. She was alone.

* * *

><p>Adam awoke to the creaking groan of the stable doors. He blinked the sleep from his eyes and shifted slowly, ever-so-careful not to reveal himself. Perched atop the main joist, he was invisible from below - the better to drop in on an aspiring horse thief. Four years he had been taking the night watch for the stables, however, and nobody had ever bothered to test his mettle. It hadn't taken long for him to realize that his watch could be synonymous with napping, for nobody was ever awake at this hour. Even the guards slept, on call but never at the ready.<p>

So it was that tonight's break-in was thoroughly unexpected. It didn't take long for drowsiness to be replaced with excitement. This was his chance to see what he was made of, to execute one of the many scenarios he had dreamed up over the years.

Slowly, meticulously, he turned onto his belly. The thief was directly below him, obscured by the beam but not unnoticed. He peered over the edge of his perch to get a good look at him. Never, in a million years of daydreams and practice-fights against barn doors, would he have expected what he saw.

There was no thief. In his place was a young woman, clad in a rich uniform of regal purples and blues. A single platinum braid spiraled hypnotically at the back of her head. Perhaps in the yellow light, he simply could not see them, but not a single strand seemed out of place. She held herself impeccably straight. This could not be Anna, the bouncing little energy ball that would sometimes stop by at dusk, asking him for oats to feed the horses. He wasn't sure if he believed who it _could_ be.

Princess Elsa - if the rumors among the kitchen boys were to be believed - remained still, glancing to each detail of the stables in wonderment. She wasn't like the servants and guards that formed the usual visiting itinerary. They always burst in, took what they needed, and left. All rush, barely any mind paid to the horses and grooms they passed by.

She, by comparison, looked as if she were in a dream. She couldn't be older than him, if not younger, but she seemed to be discovering an entirely new world. There was a lack of guidance to her gaze that drove the point even further - as pleased to be here as she was, she was lost.

He could tell her. He could show her the saddles, recommend the right mount. Hans was the fastest, but he could be absolutely vicious to the inexperienced. Olaf was much slower, but so mellow he could nap through a thunderstorm. He wanted to tell her more than that, even. The more he looked at the her, the less he wanted to do anything else.

Perched as he was, however, Adam knew that it was in his best interest to stay put. He doubted the future queen of Arendelle would appreciate a drop-in by a stable boy covered in hay.

The princess turned to the door, revealing a surprisingly… _wet_ dress. Adam wrinkled his brow in bemusement, but his attention was quickly drawn elsewhere. Her face, otherwise without flaw in its smooth paleness, formed the telltale creases of concern. She gazed at the stable doors with an almost _hurt_ expression. What did she see that he didn't?

A horse whinnied and pushed its nose out to her, causing her to gasp and turn in surprise. Adam smirked; Silver was such an excitable fellow. Princess Elsa stared at the expectant gelding. Her hands were raised uselessly in front of her chest, as if they might protect her from this new creature. Despite himself, Adam couldn't help but wonder from his invisible hiding place.

_They're generally not satisfied with you just staring at them, you know._

Echoing his sentiment, Silver snorted impatiently. Adam could only see the very edge of her face at this angle, but something in her expression changed. It was a smile - one so warm and natural that it overrode the traces of doubt and worry that had lingered there before. In that moment, despite having never met the mysterious Firstborn of Arendelle, Adam couldn't help but feel like that smile was more significant than any he had ever seen.

Hesitantly, like a child taking its first steps, she laid a hand on Silver's snout. The horse whinnied happily, and the princess gasped delightedly as he pushed himself deeper into the embrace. It was fleeting, but Adam even caught a soft laugh under her breath.

_Oh, come on_, he thought. The way she laughed just wasn't fair. Scintillatingly melodic, it was a restrained sound, only present for a second. Graceful, he thought, was a good way to describe it.

"You don't care what I look like, do you?" she asked, stroking the bridge of Silver's nose. Adam rolled his eyes.

_Even if he did, Your Highness, I don't think you'd be getting a different reaction._

She continued the motion for a long while, until her smile slowly began to fade. Her torso swelled as she took a deep, slow breath.

"Well…" she murmured to Silver, so low he almost missed it, "it's time to go."

She cast her gaze about the stable, slipping away from her chosen mount in search of the saddles. She was going in the wrong direction, but he was content to let her wander. The longer she stayed, the better, and she seemed smart enough to figure it out eventually. She passed beneath the joist, vanishing from sight. Adam shifted to the other side, allowing him to follow her journey among the stalls.

That's when he heard the most horrendous sound in his experience. The wood creaked.

Elsa gasped so forcefully that she might have been drowning, wheeling about and staring straight at him. If he hadn't been so smitten, he would have noticed the way her crystal eyes darted from beam to beam, searching for him but passing through him. He would have realized that in the shadow cast by the lamp below, he could have crouched unseen until her suspicions had passed.

Yet smitten he _was_, and so he defaulted to instinct: an option infinitely worse.

"Your Highness!" he exclaimed, foolishly loud and quaking as he scrambled to his feet. "I'm so- _ow_!"

Stars soared straight through her - and the joist, and the hay, and the horses - as his skull vibrated with a sharp _thud_. Right, the roof. The one five feet above the support beams.

He stumbled to keep his balance, but his foot caught only air. The stable spun haphazardly as he tumbled from his perch, spinning and whirling and head aching.

And so it was that Adam the stable boy came crashing down into Princess Elsa's life.

* * *

><p><strong>There you have it! Chapter 2! Thank you Timbo and SAK00 for your reviews. Make sure you all let me know how you like the story's progression so far, and also be sure to check out The Ice God (the universes are the same)!<strong>


	3. 3: Adam Westergard

**Chapter 3: Adam Westergard**

No no no no. Elsa felt weightless, separate from reality. She'd been seen, this boy had seen her. For how long, she couldn't even know, but there was no doubt that he had. Her mind raced, desperately searching through fragments of possible reactions. _Speak to - Anna - he'll - Mama and Papa - red hair - horses - angry._

For all her frenetic thinking, however, she could only stare dumbly at the groaning young man. His hair, though messy, was a light shade of terracotta, very reminiscent of Anna's. His cheeks were a shade discolored, maybe by dirt. It was hard to tell through his grimace. He was tall and had limbs thickened by labor. Older than her by a couple of years, maybe. She knew that she had never seen him before, which would make _his_ encounter with her all the more tale-worthy. And that would mean...

The world began to tilt. She was swaying. Elsa grabbed hold of a wooden column to steady herself. Braced against its stability, its implacable solidness, she remembered. This was real. The haze evaporated from her mind, leaving only one conclusion.

_Run_.

She turned away from the stable boy and made for the doors at the other end of the stables. It was not the way she'd arrived, but at least he wouldn't be in her way.

_Heavens, what was I _thinking_?!_ she thought. Maybe she could escape before he came to his senses, making the entire account deniable. If not… she could imagine the palace staff whispering about their hidden princess sneaking into the stables at night. Anna would hear them. Maybe she'd renew her efforts. Maybe she'd ignore it, after what had happened today.

And then there was her father. He wouldn't yell at her, he never did. But he would be disappointed. That was _worse_. She'd lost control of herself, given into her childish fear. Maybe he'd tell her so. Maybe he wouldn't. All she knew was that she would _forever_ regret this.

"Wait!"

She ignored the boy's voice. She was almost to the door. He wouldn't follow; if he did, she'd escape. He didn't know her, he wouldn't chase her. He might even think this all a dream. It was a foolish hope, but that was all she had.

The doors were dark and ominous, cloaked in the dim fringe of lamplight. She pushed on one of them as she rushed forward, only to find it surprisingly resistant. Too resistant. Her momentum carried her forward, ramming her unceremoniously into the wood face-first. It stung for a moment, but the physical pain faded quickly to panic.

_What...?!_

Upon closer inspection, she saw what the shadows had concealed. The doors were bolted by a thick beam. She grabbed at it, gloves scrambling across its length to find the best grip. The fact that she probably couldn't lift it did not occur to her.

"Don't go that way!"

The hay rustled behind her, followed by the rapid footfalls of running.

_No!_ She pushed the beam up as hard as she could. It was heavy, and she was not accustomed to the physical strain, but urgency worked wonders. The bolt jumped a few inches, almost enough to displace it from the pegs holding it in place. Just a little more-

A third hand took hold of the bolt. It was larger than hers, pale compared to her gloves. Different. It shoved the beam down, easily overwhelming her own meager strength and sealing her inside the stables.

* * *

><p>Adam seized the princess by the shoulders. Though he made sure to be gentle, he had to get himself between her and the door. She couldn't be blamed for panicking at his <em>introduction<em>, but now that his reputation could get no worse, he figured he might as well do them both a favor. The stables' back exit led out into the courtyard; if she were seen at this time of night, the alarm would be raised before anyone knew what was really going on. He could hardly imagine that she, or the stable boy she would inevitably describe running from, would profit from that little debacle.

"Let me go!" She pulled away from him, and he did did not restrain her. She swept a strand of platinum hair away from her eyes, drawing attention to a darkening patch of pink where she had banged her head. Adam suddenly found himself at a loss for words. Being trapped between a bolted door and a royal that had just discovered him _spying_ on her was not in his repertoire of witty comebacks.

"I'm sorry! It's just that… well, there are guards that way. I mean, I know you're a roy- the _princess_, well _a_ princess, and guards aren't a problem for you, but it's really late…" He had to admit that it wasn't his best work, but he hadn't expected her to ignore him. She had cast her gaze to the floor, eyes darting in a mad search for something he could not see. "Did you, uh… drop something?"

"No!" she replied, louder than he had expected. "I… I just have to go. Now. I'm sorry."

He hadn't expected that. _Sorry?_

She spun back toward the castle-side entrance, and he let her go without a fight. Based on how the encounter had gone so far, he figured that was wisest.

She was only halfway to the doors when they vibrated with three pounding knocks.

"Adam! We heard a noise! What is going on in there?!"

His eyes widened to the size of golf balls. It was Henrik, the captain of tonight's watch. Of all nights to be attentive, to use the _opposite_ door, it had to be this one. Naturally.

The princess froze in place, growing more erect - if that were possible. She looked back at him, neither pleading nor commanding. Just… trapped. He saw everything in her eyes: doubt, fear, curiosity. All hinging on what he did next.

In that moment, he and she were connected. It was as simple as that. His decision did not take long to follow.

"Adam! We're coming in!"

* * *

><p>Elsa's heart was pounding. She heard the grating of wood on wood as the stable doors were unlocked. Frigid air began to radiate from the hem of her dress. <em>No!<em>

"No! No, no need for that!" Adam, as he was apparently named, cried hurriedly. He fixed her with a meaningful glare, jerking his head toward the stalls. "_Hide,_" he mouthed, almost angry in his urgency. She looked about for an open one behind which to crouch, but their gates formed a continuous wall of pine. She pulled at her dress, hoping to God it would give her enough mobility to climb over them. It quickly became obvious that it wouldn't. She looked back at Adam helplessly as he rushed toward the door.

"What's going on in there?!" the guard asked again, though the door remained mercifully closed. "We heard a crash!"

"Yeah, sorry about that!" Adam replied with a nervous laugh. His expression, however, did not match the sound; he was almost grimacing when he reached her. "_Forgive me, Your Highness," _he muttered. Suddenly his hands had snagged her about the waist. She stifled a gasp as he swung her up and over one of the stalls, dropping her beside a bronze palomino. She might as well have been a doll. Her shoes sank a good two inches into the muddy soil, as did the fringe of her dress.

"I, uh… I fell! Down from the joist, _yes_, the joist..." he continued, proceeding to the door. He'd barely broken stride. "Started to doze off. Can get a little monotonous on night watches, you know? "

Elsa ducked behind the cover of the stall, doing her best to keep her dress bunched at her knees. The effort was soon defeated by a nauseous wave of stench. There was a soft pattering behind her, not at _all_ like the formation of ice. The princess looked back to see a newly-forming pile of… _excrement_ between the horse's rear legs.

She clamped a hand over her nose and screwed her eyes shut, suppressing the urge to gag with all her might. _Conceal it, don't feel it, conceal, don't feel…_

* * *

><p>The door swung wide a second before he reached it, nearly clipping him on the nose. Henrik stood there in all his uniformed glory, graying sideburns and all. Josef and Lars stood behind him; the torch Josef was holding made his smirk of amusement all-too visible. Adam normally would have dreaded the teasing he'd get from the younger guards. Tonight, however, knowing the truth of the situation gave him infinitely more satisfaction than they could tear down.<p>

As it was, Henrik cast his eyes about the stables. Being that he did not immediately widen them and mutter "princess" under his breath, Adam took it that she had managed to get over the smell.

"See?" Adam gestured to the horses. "Just me being an oaf."

Henrik's face remained drawn, gray and ashen in the dimness offered by the torch.

"You got an awful lot of men out of their beds, Adam."

"Hey, two years on the job without a peep. I said I was sorry."

The guard captain's eyes merely scanned him head to toe, obviously not impressed with his track record.

"I'm sure you are," he said flatly, hands clasped behind his back. "But let's have another two years before you nap on the job again, shall we?"

Adam clenched his teeth, biting back the half-dozen retorts that came to mind. Most of them would probably get him fired anyway, one way or another.

"Yes, sir."

Henrik's only sign of acknowledgement was a slight pinching at the corners of his eyes. He turned to the younger men at his side. Their smirks faded almost as fast as Adam's appeared. Henrik jerked his head in the direction of the barracks, and all three promptly made off across the courtyard. Henrik began to detail orders as they left; Adam leaned out the door just far enough to catch a few words.

"I want you two at the entrances," Henrik said. "What with the Stabbington rumors going about, I don't want to take any chances. Josef, you take the…"

They faded before he could catch any more, but the overall message was clear enough. It looked like he might be having company tonight, a fact about which he was both happy and upset. He should have been dreading his involvement in all of this; involvement with royal drama could bring only harm. And yet…

He pulled the doors shut, letting them settle together with a wooden rumble. "Remind me never to go military, no matter how poor I get," he muttered. The embers of his frustration with Henrik were still warm.

He turned back to the stables. The princess was still hidden, which actually surprised him. He'd half-expected her to be clambering up the side of the stall by now, desperate to get away from the smell of horse dung. He waited for her to peek over the stall. She'd realize they were gone. Eventually. Right?

Seconds passed by in silence. Hans snorted, turning a half-caring glance of amusement his way. _She has ears, you know_, the arrogant stallion seemed to say. _You may want to communicate with them. That's what you humans do, isn't it?_

Adam rolled his eyes. She was a princess - his employer, really. He just didn't want to lose the only job he'd ever kept. At this point, however, any eggshells he'd been walking on were pulverized. In that moment, caution seemed… relative.

* * *

><p>The smell was terrible; worse, the thought of it <em>right there<em>. In a pile. Adam had closed the door seconds ago, the endless variety of second that seemed to last forever and ever. But Elsa dared not come up for air; all they had to do was see her _once_. That would be all it took for rumors to start, for her to create a mess so large that even her father might not be able to clean it up. Not to mention her breaking of the one rule, the _one thing_ for which she was responsible.

Stay out of sight, learn to control yourself. Lessons that, after today, should have been fresher than ever. Yet she had shattered them.

"They're gone. You can come out."

She didn't need to be told twice, forcing her expression to even as she rose. The smell of dung tried ever harder to coax vomit out of her. She just wanted to get _out_.

The door was tied off by a loop of hemp rope. She reached out to loosen it, only to realize that she hadn't the slightest idea how. Adam was still leaning against the stable doors, eyebrow raised expectantly. She felt hot under his gaze, nowhere to go but back behind the chest-high wall of wood between them.

"I…" Elsa cleared her throat, trying to attain the calmest expression she could. Her cheeks were burning, her forehead still throbbed, and never more had the threat of her powers being discovered been so real. All of that, however, did not mean she had to lose dignity completely. "Thank you for your help… Adam." It felt odd addressing anyone other than her parents. "Now… I would appreciate it greatly if you would let me out."

He did not react immediately. She saw his chest heave with a pointed breath, though he did not sigh audibly. He just seemed… tired, or disappointed. Maybe both. "Of course... Your Highness."

She couldn't look him in the eye as he meandered to the gate and unhitched it. He stood aside for her as the door swung open, keeping the wall of wood between them. She clasped her hands to her front and stepped out of the stall, doing her best to ignore the fact that the hem of her dress was drenched in mud.

She turned her gaze to the doors from which she had come; the same doors that the guards had nearly burst through to find her. Before she could make for them, however, Adam spoke again.

"I know this has gone a little strangely, for both of us…" he began, eyes focused on her as if it were a strain to keep them there. "But… if I could just start over, my name is Adam Westergard. I tend the horses at night. You heard that, I'm sure." He shrugged with a nervous smirk. "Look, I, uh… I wasn't spying on you before. I was just sleeping up in the rafters. You surprised me… last thing - _person_ - I expected to see on a night like this was you."

Elsa averted her eyes. This was hardly the way she'd expected her birthday to go, either.

"Look, what I'm trying to say is… I probably scared you, and I'm sorry for that, but hopefully I just made up for it."

She looked up at him, this time with the true intent to _observe_ him. Everything that had happened tonight had been a frenzy of emotion: fear, grief, anger, confusion, panic. Nothing seemed clear until… now. Suddenly, she _didn't_ feel threatened by this stable boy. In that moment, she didn't hear the rasping whine of frost. She didn't fear that one mistake could launch a deluge of rumors. She didn't bear the weight of hers and Anna's broken bond.

She just… _was_.

Adam's shoulders were broad - he almost seemed like a giant against her. His face, however, was not that of a brute. Framed by mess of terracotta hair, only somewhat shaven, and smudged just the slightest bit, she hadn't seen his cleverness. It was in the way he smirked when he shrugged; his eyebrow rose exaggeratedly, and his lips folded inward in just such a way that she could see the energy in his heart. Most of all, however, she saw how his eyes widened with the expression, bright little emeralds of activity. She wanted to learn more about him. It had been so long since she'd spoken to anyone…

_No. Stop it, you've gone far enough._

Rationality came crashing down like a gavel. She stepped back.

"You have," she assured him, arms pulled to her sides. "Thank you, but… I really do have to go..."

She turned back to the doors. They seemed almost as dreadful as her room before. This time, however, she did not hesitate, striding as calmly as possible toward them. Toward the prison that was her own bedchamber.

"Actually…" She froze in place at the sound of his voice. "You may not want to go just yet."

_Stop, just stop listening_. She was growing to dislike her own thoughts more and more.

"What?" she asked, voice hardly above a whisper as dread began to rise within her.

"Well, erm... it's just that I was listening to the guards as they walked off, and Henrik - I mean, the guard captain - posted men at the castle's entrances. So there's no way they'd miss you."

_What?_ Once more, her stomach began to flutter. The castle… was closed off? _How will I get back?!_

"Oh," was all she muttered, turning her gaze to nowhere in particular. _Think. _Think!_ You have to be in your room! You should never have _been_ here!_

* * *

><p>He could see it in her eyes, the way they twitched back and forth - thinking, thinking like crazy. Not in the way Anna was sometimes wonted, with the lip-biting and foot-tapping. This looked like <em>panic<em>. The way her expression darkened, the way she seemed to wilt in on herself. He felt stressed just _looking _at her. He'd seen the other side of her, the _better _side, when she'd been petting Silver and when she'd looked at him a moment ago.

He wanted to see more of that. To hell with formality. If she wanted him fired, she had plenty of grounds for that already. Tearing down a false facade of formality would be the most sensible thing happening tonight.

"Look, Princess Elsa, I think at this point I can be honest with you, you're obviously not supposed to be here right now." Her gaze darted back to him suddenly, as if she'd forgotten that he was there. "I don't know why, and really, it's not my place to ask. All I know is that I hate Henrik, so…" He extended a hand toward her, eyebrows raised. "How 'bout I help you out of this little mess, okay?"

Her eyes flickered down to his hand, hanging in awkward loneliness above the mud. He smirked a little; how _did_ you make accords with a royal?

"You're supposed to shake it," he offered, pushing it a little closer.

Elsa swallowed, and for a second it seemed like she might turn and run anyway. Then, gaze firmly fixed on her own hand, she reached out and met his. Her grip was gentle, as if she were afraid of hurting him. He smirked and gave a brief flick of the wrist before pulling away.

"Good." He meandered toward a ladder balanced at the far end of the stable. "Now let's find you somewhere to rest."

He wouldn't have believed that her eyes could could go wider, but she quickly proved him wrong. "Wait, _rest_?"

"Of course!" he replied, placing a boot on the first rung. "It's late. I don't know if princesses have bedtimes, but I'm guessing you don't want to stand in horse mud all night."

"_All night?_" Her hands curled back to her sides. "I thought you said you'd help me get out of here!"

"I'm pretty sure I said I'd help you out of this mess, not out of the stable." He held out a calming hand when she winced. "Look, I know when the guard changes. Henrik isn't going to keep men out there for the - well, _your_ _parents _to see, if I may be so bold."

She didn't seem convinced. "He won't?"

He shook his head. "No, he won't. I can tell. You'll be able to waltz right in, come morning."

She made a pained little grimace, gazing doubtfully back at the doors.

"Princess Elsa?" He tried to assume the softest, most comforting expression he could muster. "Do you trust me?" The way she looked back at him, full of vulnerability and uncertainty, filled him with emotion. It wasn't attraction… more like protectiveness. He was even so brazen as to offer his hand to her, palm upturned and open.

Her eyes flickered to his palm, then back to him. They were the only part of her that moved. Everything else was frozen, trapped in limbo between acceptance and denial.

_Don't do this to yourself_, he urged her. _You'll get caught. You will._

She must have heard him, stepping forward and nodding her head. She did not take his hand, almost pointedly so, so he let it fall to his side. But it was her words that mattered.

"I… I do."


	4. 4: Here is This Other

**Chapter 4: Here is This Other**

His hand was hanging there, practically begging her to take it. There could be no other meaning. Years of instinct, however, forbade her. Try as she might, she couldn't remove her hands from her ribs.

"I… I do."

When his arm fell to his side, however, Elsa did not see the tired disappointment that had been there before. He had this faint smile, not of amusement, but of _knowing_. Like he just _understood_.

"Okay." His words cut through her thoughts, silencing to the storm in her mind. "Then let's get you somewhere to rest. Follow me, it smells a little less up here."

She followed the course of the ladder with her eyes as he began to climb. The siding of the wall extended inward in this corner of the stables, forming something of an alcove between the rafters and the roof. A solid platform of wood, a few inches thick perhaps, provided a makeshift flooring. It made it impossible to see what was above, but at least she wouldn't have to be hanging from the rafters.

"It's a lot worse than you're used to, I'm sure, but… well, you'll see," Adam called over his shoulder, swinging over the platform and out of sight. She took a bracing breath and laid her hand on the ladder. The pale blue of her glove blended strangely with the ruddy wood, marred as it was by mud. She stared at it and stared at it, waiting for the ice to form while praying that it wouldn't.

For the first time in forever, her prayers were answered.

The knowledge alone that her powers were at peace - if even only for the moment - made some of her fear subside. Gravity seemed less important, and she was soon climbing after Adam.

His back was to her when she crested the platform's edge, silhouetted by the glow of a newly-lit lantern. The ceiling hung above them, leaving just enough room to sit comfortably. A mat was laid out in the corner, along with a rolled blanket that might have served as a pillow. There was also a small length of wood placed beside it, thin and irregular, and a knife that had probably been used to whittle it. Her eyes widened; she hadn't known what to expect, but this looked like a…

A room.

"You don't have to worry about the floor, I scrub it every night. Otherwise mud gets everywhere." He turned back to her, a lantern in one hand and a smoking match in the other. She met his gaze questioningly, causing his energetic features to fade to something more bemused.

"Do you… live here?" she asked, surprise temporarily overwhelming any pretense of formality.

"Ah…" He sighed, setting the lantern down and tossing the match through a small gap in the roofing. "Not _here_, exactly. This is just where I wait out my watch. Except tonight, obviously." He gestured to the main joist with a laugh. "But you got a good glimpse of that."

She did not reply, caught up in a sudden realization. He probably spent a good deal of time here. A _great_ deal of time here. In this platform, in this… _room_.

"I guess it's as much a home as any, being on duty every night," he consented, shrugging. "But I won't bore you with that, it's a… it's not as bad as you might think. Here, let me give you a hand."

He offered his hand again. She almost leaned back out of instinct. Almost. The repulsion that she had trained in herself for so long felt… weaker, somehow. Her powers were quiet, and she hadn't hurt him when they shook hands… maybe…

"Don't worry, I don't bite," he said with a comforting smile. She swallowed.

_It's not him you're afraid of._

Her hand trembled as she put it to rest in his, but there was no grimace, no gasp of surprise from him at the contact. His smile just widened, and he pulled her up onto the platform easily.

Her heart slowed just a little bit more.

"There's only straw in the mat, but you're welcome to it," he offered. "I'm sure it's no royal mattress, but it's better than hardwood, if my opinion's worth anything."

"Thank you," she replied, not knowing what else to do. She leaned against the wall and drew her knees into her chest. Adam leaned against a column at the edge of the platform and stretched, rubbing at the back of his neck with a grimace. Neither of them spoke for a few seconds, though she wanted to. What was there to say? How did one make conversation with a servant? The polite addresses her father had taught her seemed trite here. She wished that she could feel as at-ease as he seemed; any pretense of nervousness had faded from him the moment he had offered to help her. So much so that he managed to pick up the slack of her silence.

"So, here's the plan," he began, picking himself up and crouching by the wall. His hair almost brushed the roofing, so close was he to its sloping end. He pointed to a small opening in the woodwork, the same that he had thrown the match through earlier. "When the sun rises, it makes an orange glow through this crack. When the light covers half of its length, Henrik rotates off duty and Espen - the day-shift captain - will take over. That's when most of the other guards will return to the barracks. You following me so far?"

She blinked, surprised by how quickly his tone had taken on energy and directness. It was all she could do to nod and digest the rush of information.

_Sun rises, light halfway down the crack, Espen, shift change._

"Good. When the guards change, there will be a few minutes where they'll all be inside the barracks receiving their orders. It'll still be early in the morning, so hopefully nobody in the castle will be awake. I know I never see anyone when I stop by the kitchens for my… wages." He shifted uncomfortably at that, but continued before she had much time to dwell on it. "I'll take a look out when I think it's time. If they've left their posts, you'll want to make a run for it. If you move quickly, you should be able to get back to your room - or wherever you're supposed to be - without anyone noticing."

* * *

><p>He wished she could have seen herself. She was doing it again - eyes flitting from here to there, obviously not focused on the objects in front of her so much as the thoughts in her head.<p>

This, however, was no spell of panic. In fact, he had a hunch this was something very few people got to see. This was Princess Elsa the student, consuming and digesting every detail out of his mouth. He could practically see the words running across her irises, like windows into her mind.

"Should I repeat anything?" he asked, trying to suppress a smile when her eyes snapped back to him.

"I… _no_. Thank you."

_Thank you._ Did she have to end every sentence with that phrase? Probably the work of some etiquette tutor.

"Alright then," he said, resuming his position against the beam. "When will we know that the guard is changing?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I just want to see if you remembered everything." He offered her a soft grin. "So how will we know when the guard changes?"

"The light," she replied simply, nodding to the gap as if it were common knowledge. "The light of the sunrise will show through this crevice. When half of its length is illuminated, the guards will change shifts, as you said."

He noticed a slight swiftness in her voice, replacing the nervousness that had been there before. Her words flowed just a bit better, eyes slightly more focused. It seemed that Princess Elsa was quite comfortable where her wits were concerned.

"Not bad," he said. "And what happens then?"

"You will scout out the courtyard, and if the guards have returned to the barracks, I'll be able to return to the castle." Her tone was light and calm, almost _airy_. The speed with which she had changed tones was astounding; he wondered if she truly felt at home, being quizzed like this, or if it was a practiced facade.

"Pretty good," he consented. "What are the guard captains' names?"

"Henrik and… Henrik is the one to whom you spoke," she answered, her words noticeably slower. Her eyes darted away for a moment, searching for something he knew she wouldn't find. "_Mm_…"

Her eyebrows twitched downward, and she began to drop into a steady concentration. Adam couldn't help but smile a _little_… after their initial interactions, it was a joy to watch her open up. There was a nervous thrill to it all, even if it was to watch her frown when she couldn't remember a name.

Anna did that sometimes. Of course, she was always biting her lip, and it was usually over some scheme to steal chocolate from the kitchen. The subject of their ruminations aside, however, the sisters made the same thinking face. Eyebrows slanted down ever-so-slightly, eyes roaming the floor in thought. When he had first seen her, Adam had scarcely believed that Arendelle's princesses were related. Now…

_Maybe they're not so different._ After all, Elsa was here, tonight, unlike any other night. She wasn't _supposed_ to be here, or at least couldn't be seen. Something had brought her out, though. Maybe it was rebellion, maybe it was just the spirit of trying something new - he couldn't know. But there was a confused sort of adventurousness in that, and he had seen that adventurousness before. She had red hair and two little braids, loved to ride horses, and couldn't be made to stop talking for the world.

He wondered if that was in the young woman sitting across from him, eyes dancing with thought. He couldn't wait to find out.

* * *

><p>"You want me to say it?"<p>

Adam's voice cut through her mind like a knife. Not that it had been going anywhere.

_He said it,_ she thought, increasingly frustrated. _Why can't you remember? He said it a minute ago-_

"Because I can say it if you-"

"No, Julian, I just need a second to…" She paused, abandoning the previous problem in realization of her error.

"_Julian_?" He cocked his head a bit, mouth grinning and brow creasing. "Maybe you didn't catch it, but my name's-"

"Adam, yes, I know," she said, a little too quickly. Her face felt very… warm. It made the spot where she'd hit her head throb slightly. "Julian is my… my tutor. That's all."

"Wow, you have a tutor," Adam remarked, pursing his lips. "Not bad."

She averted her eyes, ghosting her glove over the throbbing mark on her forehead. It didn't tell her much through the fabric, but the cool moisture still trapped there felt good.

"You alright?" he asked. He frowned with concern. "I heard you hit the door from the other end of the barn. I can take a look at it if you want."

"No, that's alright," she responded, quick and decisive. "I'm fine, thank you." Adam made a face, eyes flickering upward for just an instant.

"You sure? It looks like it'll bruise."

That got her attention. "It… it does?" How would she explain _that_? Even if she got back to her room in time, she'd never be able to hide a welt on her forehead.

_You are so _stupid!she thought. _How could you, of all people, not check if a door's locked?! _

Adam chuckled softly to himself, a sound she most certainly did _not_ appreciate at the moment.

"Here," he suggested, soft and smiling, as he crawled over to her. She hesitated, paralyzed and unsure. He might change his mind about the bruising, or better yet, he might know how to prevent it altogether. Was that even possible? It probably wasn't, and in that case, why should she-

"Hey," he murmured, hanging a couple feet back. "I don't bite. Honest."

The way he tilted his head, the way he gazed at her and raised his eyebrows - it made her trepidations feel silly. Unable to think of a good reason to keep him away, she slowly inclined her head. Adam accepted the invitation, crouching at her side. He placed her chin between his thumb and forefinger and adjusted her head further, a gesture from which she immediately withdrew. He responded to her wide, demanding eyes with raised hands.

"I can't look at it if I can't get a good angle," he said. "I'm just positioning you. That alright?"

The frankness of his tone made her feel silly once again. She swallowed.

"I… yes. I'm sorry."

"Don't be." He hummed softly to himself as he tilted her head once again. The contact sent goose flesh racing down her arms. Adam's hands were warm, but most of all, she could feel the _skin_ of his fingertips, tough and callused and very much unlike her gloves. It had been so long since she'd felt anything like that. She closed her eyes, tried to focus on that feeling, only that feeling. It was foolish, it was pathetic, but it kept her mind off of the individual crouched so close beside her. She wasn't repulsed by him, it wasn't that at all. It was his mere _proximity_ that made her feel everything and nothing - confused, afraid, nervous, but also safe and a slew of other things that she couldn't even identify. She felt at war with herself, struggling in vain to control all those emotions, a storm that had always brought frost and danger with it. Tonight, however, even with a young man pinching her chin and ghosting his fingers across her forehead, that frost did not rise.

Why _was _that?

"Mmn…" Adam made a dissatisfied sound in his throat, tethering her back to reality. "Yep, that's a bruiser. No two ways about it."

Elsa slowly withdrew. She grimaced, squirming with helplessness. What could she possibly do? There would be no way to explain this - mostly to her father, but also to the servants that certainly did _not_ expect their princess to be running face-first into doors.

_At least Anna would be proud of you_, she told herself.

"Hello, Princess?"

His voice was light, amused. Her focus flickered to him, so close, emerald eyes peeking out from under his lids. "Relax, alright? You're making _me_ worried."

She couldn't help the anguished sigh that escaped her, or the words that followed. "How can I not be worried? How do I explain a bruise on my forehead?"

"What, you can't say you tripped overnight?"

She averted her eyes, unable to think of a good response. True, she _could_ say that… but she didn't _want_ to. She wasn't Anna, breaking a limb every other week.

Her silence did not deter him. "Apparently not," he muttered, squinting at her like a tailor constructing a vision. "How about this…"

His hand was back to her forehead before she could do anything but blush. She felt the customary urge to pull back, to avoid being touched, but she held herself in place. Her last withdrawal felt silly enough. His fingers plucked at small tufts of her hair, dislodging a handful that had been meticulously combed away from her forehead. She'd worked her own hair a million times before, but something about another doing it was strange. Soothing and frightening at the same time. She tried to suppress the sensation, and the thoughts that followed. _Too dangerous_.

Thought, counter-thought; impulse, counter-impulse. She hated it, hated how it taxed her mind, hated how it refused to quiet itself even in the depths of the night. Adam would not hurt her, and her magic was _silent_. _Why can't you stop being so _afraid_?_

"There." Adam's voice tore her from the torture of her thoughts once more. He was smirking proudly now, eyes focused on his handiwork. "Nothing you can't improve on, but I think it does the trick."

She raised a tentative hand to her forehead. Even through her gloves she could feel the feathery resistance of her hair, lowered in a fringe over her forehead like she'd so often worn it before. _Why didn't you think of that_?

"Instant bruise removal," he chuckled, more than a little self-satisfied. "Will that do?"

She couldn't be sure without a mirror, but with a little makeup the _idea_ certainly had merit. Relief flooded through her anew; there was a chance that she might make it through this after all. She sighed again, a small smile not far behind. He did not miss it for a second.

"I'll take that as a yes." His smile was a larger reflection of her own. "In the meantime, I think I've got something to help with the swelling." He swung over to the ladder and began to descend. He paused, chest just peeking over the edge of the platform. "I'll be right back," he added. "Alright?"

She bobbed her head ever so slightly, one corner of her mouth tilting upward with the motion. Her relief must have been easily readable, because he couldn't help but throw in one last comment. "See? Everything'll be fine."

With that he dropped out of sight, but his words remained. _'Everything'll be fine.'_ She had an excuse, she had a plan. And, for the first time… she had a _friend _to help her. A friend that just may be right after all.

She relaxed her legs, letting her knees fall from her chest and lie sideways along the bed. She cast her eyes about the quaint alcove as she smoothed out her dress. New details emerged in the absence of her stress. The shadows cast by grooves in the woodwork were no longer haunting, but intriguing. The lantern hanging at her side cast a warm glow about the place, its single orange flame swaying lazily behind its glass cage. She stared at for longer than she should have, entranced by this strange child of heat. The cold never bothered her, but there was something about warmth that she rarely got to experience. It was so foreign, calling out to something primal within her human spirit. Ice and snow were unwelcome guests that had overstayed their welcome; the soft glow of Adam's lantern drew her in, softened her thoughts until the sharpened points of ice had melted.

* * *

><p>"Here we are…" Adam grunted, dragging himself back onto the platform. The cold, wet rag clutched in his fist made the maneuver more difficult than normal, but it was nothing he couldn't handle. Elsa turned her head to him, squeezing her eyes shut and open again in an exaggerated blink.<p>

"Tired?" he asked.

"No." She seemed like she was about to say more, but it did not come. He unrolled the washcloth from his hand, folding it into a pad.

"Here," he offered, handing it to her. "Hold this to your forehead. I know it's not very cold, but it should help with the pain."

Her eyes flickered from him to the cloth, but only fleetingly before she took it. "Thank you," she murmured. A grateful smile twitched across her mouth, just enough time for him to catch it. He nodded in kind, leaning back with a sigh.

Moments passed in silence, but there was no discomfort like before. Elsa had transformed miraculously; her knees were laid to the side, eyes turned without focus to the splayed dress that covered them. The room seemed warmer with her calm, bringing with it a deep sense of fulfillment that he had not expected. Despite himself, he found the courage to chuckle openly.

Elsa turned to look at him, eyebrows drawn in confusion. Her gaze was steady, curiously innocent. He smirked.

"I'm sorry, it's just… I would never, in a million years, have expected something like this," he said. "Me, playing nurse to Princess Elsa of Arendelle."

"Mm." She nodded slightly, distantly, for a second. "You can call me Elsa, you know." His eyebrows rose of their own accord. She smiled, just a slight tilt of her lips. It was the first time she had directed such a gaze at him, and it removed any questions from his mind. "I think you've earned it."

"Well alright then, _Elsa_," he repeated slowly, testing the lonely name. "Shall we make the introductions, then?"

Her head tilted slightly, a motion all the more exaggerated by the arm holding a cold washcloth to it.

"Very well," she decided, nodding slightly toward him and raising a fold of her dress as if to curtsy. "Elsa of Arendelle."

He bent forward in a mock bow. "Adam Westergard of… nowhere, really. Arendelle, I guess?"

Elsa laughed in her soft manner, raising her fingertips to her lips. "Very formal of you."

"Yeah, well, what with my noble lineage and all," he chuckled, throwing his hands up helplessly. "I gave it my best shot."

"You didn't do so poorly."

He curved his brow skeptically. "Your kindness is appreciated. Inaccurate, but appreciated."

"_Deserved_ is the best word, I think."

He cocked his head back at that, surprised by her openness. That feeling was shared, apparently, because he saw the pink bloom that made its way across her pale cheeks. "I… you've been a great help to me. Court manners aren't going to change that."

Her jaw set, and he could tell she was not happy with the choice of words. That pleased him, more than anything - seeing her stressed about something _other_ than getting back to her room was a fantastic start.

"Well, that's good," he replied. "Because a place that smells like this is has me sunk as far as manners go."

She tried to stifle the laugh that followed that statement, failing in what almost looked like a hiccup. Her eyes were wide with surprise at his directness, underscored by the crystalline glove covering her mouth.

"Not that I have a mind for being polite in the first place," he muttered. Perhaps he had gone too far with that one.

The rosy tone of her cheeks did not fade, but she uncovered her mouth anyway. "No, it's alright. You're quite right about that."

"It's actually not so bad. Horses are lightweights in the… smell department." He found himself on a conversational path on which he didn't necessarily like being. "Then again, after you've spent your life in a castle, I'd wager this place could make eyes water."

Her cheeks returned to their pale hue. He watched the faint ghost of her smile melt away, leaving only a distracted, hollow expression. "Mm," was all she managed to say in return.

He cocked his head, pursing his lips ever-so-slightly. What was it with her? He'd almost dared to believe that he had drawn her out. Almost every other subject seemed to shove her back into this... _shell_. Her beauty be damned, he wasn't going to get anywhere with her anyway. He knew that. At this point, it was more like coaxing out a scared kitten than making a friend. He'd always been fond of kittens.

"Not that you haven't probably seen way more than I have," he added, trying to switch paths. "All those dignitaries and tradesmen coming to see your father. _Princes_, even." He raised his eyebrows suggestively. " I'm lucky if the guards look at me when they get horseshoes."

She offered him a sympathetic look, barely sincere in its constructedness. Her eyes flickered downward almost immediately after, dwelling on the purple folds of her dress. "I don't know as many princes as you might think," she murmured, drawing an arm across her midriff.

"Well, more than me at least!" he laughed, crossing his arms resolutely. "Come on. If you've gotten away with never seeing a noble for this long, I'd be speechless."

Her lips folded inward, and her brow creased almost unnoticeably. Almost. Before he could say anything, however, her brows lowered just a fraction more. Then she turned her gaze back to his.

"It's not as interesting as you might imagine," she said, voice direct and with purpose. "I preside over diplomatic sessions and council meetings, when they're held. It's not all fraternizing and champagne."

"I didn't say it was, but _come on_." He leaned forward, crossing his arms. "You're a _princess_! You get to see things that someone like… that _I_ would never get to see! How do you run a country, what do all of you talk about?"

_Nothing_. She wasn't angry at him, she couldn't be; how could he know how much his words jabbed at her, reminded her of what was waiting back in the castle? Sure, she was here now, but her life was still out there, _it _was still inside of her.

"Nothing exciting. Trade legislation, tax policies, treaty updates. I… they never stay long. My father usually visits other kingdoms."

"Hm." Adam leaned back, eyes lowered in thought for a moment. She couldn't bring herself to interrupt the silence. Her knees suddenly seemed very far away; she felt naked, open, without them close to her. Before she could shift, however, Adam intervened.

"I've been kicked by a horse before, you know," he mentioned casually, as if discussing how cold yesterday had been.

She was almost as shocked as she was confused. "What?"

"Square in the chest, really." He smirked, patting his breastbone. "Ol' Hans down there. The royal stallion." He jabbed his thumb over the edge of the platform. She leaned forward, catching a glimpse of the creamy equine's mane.

"We were, erm… _checking up_ on him." Adam laughed to himself. "Apparently I checked up on him a tad too _well_."

Her brows knit in bemusement. "I'm sorry?"

He opened his mouth to speak, but paused. His eyes darted away from hers, searching for words she could only guess.

"Let's just say I… I combed him in a sensitive area," he decided, eyes heavy with meaning. A hot blush filled her cheeks as she leaned back, and her hand made it halfway to her mouth before she thought to stop it.

"Oh."

"Yeah." He chuckled, aiming a spiteful glance at "Hans." "Stable master said I should've been dead."

When a smile tried to creep onto her face, she let it. "Really?"

"Really," he parroted, smirk ablaze. "Sent me sailing right into the door like a flag ship. Little guy's been holding a grudge ever since."

She laughed, and this time her hand made it all the way to her mouth. He accepted it graciously, palms raised in indifference. "We all have stories to tell, Elsa. You might be surprised who's interested."

Her laughter quieted with the unexpected poignance of his reply. His smile had softened to expectancy, and he drew himself up with legs crossed and back erect. Waiting. She sighed.

_It's your turn now._

Elsa felt like she was at the brink of a precipice, a threshold she had never before crossed. She had never even considered to remember such things, curious anecdotes that might make for good stories one day. Why would she ever need to? Whom would she ever tell?

Now, however, with Adam sitting quietly and her powers silent, she _needed _to tell him something. Anything. After all, she may never have this chance again.

"The Foreign Minister of the Southern Isles picks his nose," she murmured, surprised by what she had decided on.

Adam's eyes widened with incredulity and uncertainty. "What?"

"The… the Foreign Minister of the Southern Isles…" she swallowed, suddenly quite uncertain if this had been the wisest secret to share. "Picks his nose."

The air hung thick with silence for one dreadful second. Then he lost it, choking out laughter as he tried to stay under the ears of the guards.

"_What_? Oh, my goodness, that is too perfect." The stable boy dropped against the wall, eyes shut with mirth. "_How_ do you know that?"

Something began to rise within her. Something that hadn't arisen in _years_. It egged her on, only added to her almost insane urge to be very unlike the last eight years of her life.

"He did it coming out of the water closet, when he thought no one was watching." A little breath of amusement escaped her. Heavens, this felt good. "And the Baron of Northland bumped into a table at the stateroom because he was staring at one of the maids!"

"Well, it's good to know that _that's_ the same everywhere," he chuckled. "Kai takes ten seconds to stare at Gerda's behind every time he sees her."

Her eyes widened. "What?"

"Ohh, _yes_." He nodded emphatically. "Rumor has it that they have a special closet. One that only _they_ have the keys to." He winked, and she reddened at the implication.

"That can't be true. My father would know about it."

Adam shrugged, outer lip puffed out. "Maybe he does. Those two've been heading up the staff way before I ever got here; I won't say I know any more about it than you, but maybe he just _lets_ them."

She arched an eyebrow. "Or you're wrong."

Adam laughed. "Not possible." There was a brief pause, punctuated only by the fading sighs of their laughter. "You know, I don't think I should be sharing this information with you. Might get some people fired."

She blinked. "What? No, I would never-"

"I'm joking," he added. "I trust you just fine."

She felt her cheeks warm again. She averted her eyes, laying the washcloth at her side to trace her fingertips over the creases in her gloved palms. She wasn't sure where this sudden confidence was coming from - or even if she could justifiably call it confidence - but now, opened, she could not stop herself.

"Thank you, for being patient with me."

Adam sighed. "I'm starting to think that 'thank you' is all you know how to say. Do I have Julian to blame for that?"

"No, I mean it, please." She was more curt than she might have otherwise desired, but her greatest fear now was that he would bring back her cowardice. She didn't want to live with another word unsaid. "I know I can be… I've been shutting you out, letting all of this get to me, and… you've been wonderful. Really." It sounded like some kind of flattery, so undecorated and honest. But as nervous as she'd felt saying it, she could not describe how much lighter she felt. She hadn't said much, really… but she'd said _something_, and that was more than she had done in a very long time. "So thank you."

Adam did not respond immediately. He beheld her thoughtfully, taking a long, slow breath. Air whistled through his nostrils as he let it go, like a nobleman exhaling pipeweed. Just as she began to feel discomfort, he broke the silence again.

"Well, then you're welcome. It was… worth the effort." He smiled, tilting his head at the choice of words. "Anna's very lucky to have a sister like you."

There it was again. Elsa folded her hands inward at the sickening pit that formed in her stomach. Desperate to avoid it, she turned her gaze to the small length of wood lying at the side of the bed. It was straighter than she had noticed before, with tiny indentations along the top that could only have been…

_Holes?_

Too hesitant to touch it, she settled for asking him. "What's this?"

"That? Oh, it's… it's nothing." He rose to a crouch and practically reached across her to retrieve the little carving. He rocked back suddenly, landing on the wooden platform with a dull _thud_. She put a hand out to steady herself as the platform shook.

"Don't worry, it won't fall. Benedikte and I put it up ourselves."

She wasn't sure if she should be comforted by that. "Benedikte?"

"The Stable Master. Well, the big one." He smirked, toying with the bit of wood absent-mindedly. "I'm just the spare."

"You seem to do quite well," she gently offered.

"Mm." He paused for a second, digesting her words. She couldn't be certain of it - his face was a bit ruddy - but she thought she saw a rosy hue rise to his face. "When I was a little boy, I had this flute. My father gave it to me; he said that music stays with any person, no matter where they go. That a man without music is not a whole man. So I made this one."

She smiled, settling softly against the wall. Her face was burning, but she didn't mind anymore. "That's beautiful."

He smiled for a second, letting his lips quickly fall back down.

"My father was… he was a good man."

"What happened to him?"

Adam flipped the flute around his finger. "Lost at sea. The ocean'll take anyone, rich or poor, good or bad."

"I'm… I'm sorry."

"Bah." He waved his hand. "It was a long time ago. I just started carving this thing to pass the time. There's not much to do most of the time. I don't get many princesses crashing in in the middle of the night."

She laughed. "As I remember it, you were the one that crashed."

He joined her laughter. After the sudden somberness that had taken him, it was a relief to hear that crisp a sound. "That I did. I'm starting to think you're too smart for my own good."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"_Thank you._" He smirked, eyebrows raised. "Well, you're polite enough to be a princess, that's for sure."

She restrained the girlish urge to say it again, if not just to annoy him. It was such an alien feeling, this playfulness. Similar, yet different from what she'd felt as a child.

"Do you know how to play it?"

"What, the flute?" he asked. He cast a doubtful glance at the thing. "Honestly, if it makes any sound at all, I'd be impressed."

Copying his action before, she clasped her hands on her lap and sat back, patiently awaiting his performance. Adam rolled his eyes and raised the flute to his lips.

She wondered what it would sound like with eager anticipation. She hadn't heard music since her piano lessons as a child - they'd been swiftly canceled upon the realization that she could freeze the keys by accident. No matter what he played, she couldn't imagine that she'd find it-

_FWOOM!_

She gasped, bracing herself against the wall behind her as the shrieking honk blasted through the air. Adam was hunched forward, a dusty cloud that he had blown from the flute settling lazily on the woodwork. He glanced up at her askance.

"Sorry for the noise," he said, though she could see the grin eating at his features. "Had to get the wood shavings out."

She just stared at him, bug-eyed and softly panting.

"You okay?"

She swallowed, trying to regain her composure. "I… yes. Just startled."

"I can see that. Sorry, again." The fact that he was fighting his obvious amusement was something, at least. "Let's see if I can't calm you down."

His body rocked backwards as he began to play. The sound was radically different from its predecessor: a low, haunting whistle, one that he quickly brought up to a higher note. The melody was jarred in places by a warped tune or flat, but Adam's fingers danced across the holes with deft precision. A chill went up her spine, and quite suddenly she found her heart beating faster not out of fear, but something altogether more mysterious.

Adam had closed his eyes, and she had the sense that it was no longer just the two of them. He swayed with the music, occasionally creasing his features as he winced at a mistake or bobbed with a perfect note. His blindness allowed her eyes to roam, first over the dim lamplight and then onto his face, his fingers as they danced. It wasn't until her eyes began to sting that she realized just how _tired_ she was, how late the night had grown. Her "argument" with Anna, even the spell of panic in her room, seemed forever away.

When her eyelids began to droop, she resisted. She knew what she would find come morning. Her room, her powers, closed and secret. This adventure would have to end. So it was that Adam noticed her bobbing head and kept playing, only occasionally glancing her way, until the Firstborn of Arendelle slipped slowly down onto the bedroll and lay still.

* * *

><p>He didn't stop playing until he was sure of it. Elsa's body moved rhythmically with her breathing, curled neatly upon his bedroll. Her mouth lay open ever-so-slightly, lips smooth and impeccable borders to the darkness beyond. He sighed and looked at her for awhile, wondering at how such a person could exist. Kind, beautiful, smart - albeit more withdrawn than a shell-shocked turtle - she had gone over and above his expectations. He had met girls in the past, fooled around with more than one of them. Elsa was different. She was the first girl he'd ever want to be his <em>friend<em>.

Slowly, so as to not shake the platform, Adam rose and unrolled the blanket. She murmured something unintelligible as he draped it over her. He just smiled, as he found himself doing an awful lot tonight, and murmured his response. "Good night, Princess."

The horses were mostly silent as he descended back to the ground. He could only justify staring at her for so long, but the building felt suddenly empty in her absence. He loved the horses, their personalities, their most hated trick or favorite snack. After tonight, however, they would forever seem like hollow company.

A disdainful snort sounded from his back. Adam turned to face Hans, the horse eying him neutrally as he downed his late night snack of hay. The stable boy just smirked, narrowing his eyes at the cynical stallion.

"You're just bitter because you guessed wrong."

* * *

><p><strong>I owe you all an apology. It has been ages since I updated, you probably all assumed this story was dead. That's fair, I know I would have. Alas, it is not, and I will do my utmost to be better. Goodness knows there are enough unfinished fics with my name on them. That being said...<strong>

**This scene. Oh my God. This scene. Words cannot describe how much hassle this gave me. The hardest thing to write of my career. I have worked on this damn thing _every day_ since I last posted. It's not even that long, for that much work, but almost everything on here was rewritten at some point. You can blame me, but it's truly Elsa's fault. Getting that girl to warm up to another person is the hardest thing I've ever had to pull off. The conversation kept going in loops no matter what I did, with Elsa trying to speak, then going right back into her cocoon when Adam so much as mentioned the castle, or Anna, or her life at all, really. I suppose I should be happy - it means Elsa's character is really shining through - but I am so fed up with her shy/protection bullshit. Seriously. Now I know why Anna got so frustrated.**

**Anyway, given that I so painstakingly tried to preserve Elsa's character, how did I do? Does she feel like a 16-year-old Elsa would feel? How about Adam? Now that you know more about him, do you like him? Does he seem like a jerk? Your thoughts are welcome!**


	5. 5: A Good Night's Sleep

**Chapter 5: A Good Night's Sleep**

"Rrrgh!"

Anna threw herself across the bed, ignoring the tangle of sheets and comforters that did their best to impede her. She buried her face in her pillow, forcing herself to lie still for at least a few seconds. Perhaps _this_ position would finally allow her to sleep.

It didn't. The young princess huffed and turned onto her back, staring helplessly at the black canopy of her bed. How long had she been lying here? It had to be at least an hour. Maybe a half hour, but that was being _really_ skimpy. She sighed; she was only making the effort because her mother had been in.

_"Get some rest, Anna,"_ she'd said, with a little kiss on the forehead. _"You'll feel better in the morning."_

"It _is _the morning," she grouched. How could anyone expect her to sleep after a day like today? Better yet, why had she been so _hopeful_ in the first place? What, after all this time, could have _possibly_ led her to believe that Elsa would come out? And for what, chocolate?

"Pfft." She rolled to the side, pulling the comforter up to her nose. She stared vehemently out the window at the 543 white pinpricks of starlight glimmering in the night sky.

Counting hadn't helped her sleep either.

"Bet Elsa's sleeping just fine," she grumbled into the cloth covering her mouth. Pretty Elsa, with her pretty bed, sleeping as peacefully as pretty Sleeping Beauty. She probably slept much the same as she did when they were little: turned to her side, hands tucked neatly under her head, hair somehow staying perfect throughout the night. Anna remembered that pose clear as crystal; it was one of the sharpest memories of Elsa that she had. Not that she wouldn't welcome new ones if Elsa would just _let_ her.

"Or even tell me _why_!" She slapped her hand against the pillow and bounced onto her back once more. The springs of the bed groaned against her sudden movement. "Why can't she just talk to me? Am I that bad? Do I stink? Am I too loud? Because I'm only that loud to get your attention, _sis_!"

She raised her hands to the darkness, little claws of stress that hovered for a moment before collapsing onto the pillow with a muffled _thump_. _Why_? What had she done so _wrong_ that she wasn't even allowed to give Elsa a birthday gift? Why was it always Elsa's business when she asked her parents about it? Why could _Julian_ - that mean, _mean_ little man - see her every week, while her own sister was lucky to get a glimpse of her dress as she closed the door? And most of all, why was _she_ the only one not in on it? Sometimes she felt like everyone saw something she didn't. Something ugly.

The water that pooled in her eyes only made her angrier. "No. That's not true. It's her fault. I didn't do anything wrong." She sniffed, wiping her tears on the blankets. She curled into their meager, comforting embrace, drawing in the softness around her as memories rushed to her unbidden. The silence of Elsa's door. The haste with which her parents arrived, their tones hushing, smothering. Eyes full of the pain of disappointment, of embarrassment for their daughter. Anna the Tantrum-Thrower. Anna the Oblivious. Anna the Spare.

"They love me just as much as Elsa." She forced it on herself, refused to believe anything else. "They love me."Her mother had come to see her after the… the fight. Just her. Only her, not Elsa. She'd made time for _Anna_. She took solace in that notion, at least enough to make the tears stop. But that didn't get rid of the Elsa problem.

"She's just mean. Thinks she's too good for me." Anna pushed her head deeper into the pillow's embrace. "Fine. Last time I try to get her attention."

Her nose ached, squashed as it was against the pillow. She could only hope that the suffocation might make her pass out. Maybe then she'd get some sleep. She tried to focus on the silence of her room, the solid blackness smothering her eyes. Their blankness distracted her, kept the less pleasant activities of her head at bay.

_'I HATE YOU!'_

Yup. That hadn't lasted long. She rolled onto her back at the edge of the bed, a veritable cocoon of blankets encasing her. She'd never said that to Elsa before. Maybe she wasn't sleeping soundly, maybe she was upset too. Her father had gone to talk to her, after all.

That was why she'd never said it before. She'd never known _why_. What if there was a good reason? What if it had nothing to do with her? That little inkling of doubt had kept those three words back, until today.

Yet she'd meant it, when she said it. That was the worst part. That raw frustration of not being able to even see Elsa's _face_, of being powerless to open that unbreachable door, had overwhelmed her. It made her blood simmer even now. All she wanted was an answer. It didn't even have to be a nice answer. Really. She just wanted some sign, some indication that Elsa respected her enough to tell her the truth. To stop ignoring her.

This was Elsa's fault. _She_ was the one doing the shutting out. _She_ was the one that outright rejected a birthday present from her own sister. Her own sister, that now hated her.

The young princess moaned, working her hands free of the blankets to plaster them across her face. "I am such an idiot," she grumbled, words warped by the cage of her fingers, unsure of what was dumber: what she had said, or that she felt guilty for saying it. She rolled onto her side, arms crossed protectively across her chest as anger and exhaustion steadily gave way to guilt. No wonder Elsa didn't talk to her, what with the tantrums and yelling and throwing of chocolate. If she'd had a chance before, she'd certainly spoiled it today. What right did she have to yell at Elsa, when she was nasty enough for the both of them?

She drew her knees up over her arms, as if the shame could be squeezed out of her. She shouldn't have yelled like that. Playing the conversation over in her mind, she realized how one-sided it had been. True, one-sidedness was what had caused her anger in the first place, but that didn't keep her from feeling like a royal jerk. Literally.

If Elsa had planned on talking to her, she certainly wouldn't now. Not until Anna made it right.

"I'm sorry, Elsa," she murmured. She knew that nobody could possibly hear those words, even in the dead silence of night, but the tiniest hint of a hope wormed its way in there somehow. Maybe Elsa would just _know_, like she always seemed to know what she was thinking when they were little.

"_When we were little_." The words ghosted across Anna's lips of their own accord, bringing new tears to the corners of her eyes. She sniffed, overwhelmed by longing and unable to imagine how she could have been so angry before.

"I'll go apologize tomorrow," she told herself. "It's not like I'm gonna sleep tonight anyway."

* * *

><p>Adam almost couldn't do it. Elsa had moved her hands under her head at some point during the night, curling her chin toward her breastbone. Despite her curled posture, however, her face remained completely relaxed. Her torso swelled and relaxed as steadily as it had when he left her. She was so peaceful, a vision compared to the anxious mess with which he had started.<p>

He glanced at the crack in the wall. The orange glow of dawn meandered almost imperceptibly along its length, halfway down already. Josef and Lars had marched back into the castle at the very brink of their shift's end, almost to the minute. Picturing them having to stand silently by the doors all night was an appeasing thought to what he had to do now.

"Elsa…" he murmured, gently laying a hand on her shoulder. "Wake up."

Her lids pinched slightly at the corners. She curled inward even more.

"Mmmn…" she groaned, fighting his attempts to pull her back. "_Rrna._.. _go back to sleep_…"

He smirked. "You're welcome to, if you don't feel like getting back inside anymore."

Her eyes opened just a crack, lazily taking in the straw mat beneath them. It didn't take long after that. She blinked once, eyes quickly widening to the bright, blue crystals he had come to know.

"Adam?" she asked, as if she'd expected someone else. She sat up quickly, eyes darting from him to the glowing gap in the wall in between blinks. Her braid remained bound to the back of her head, though her hair was awkwardly squashed on the side where she'd slept.

"Hang on." He smirked, fluffing the matted platinum strands and sweeping her bangs back over the bruise on her forehead. Her eyes rested blankly on his torso, occasionally moving to some other part of him. He only dared glance at her directly. For some reason, the idea of direct eye contact seemed unbearable in a way it hadn't last night. "It's good to know that princesses can get bed-head, too." She smiled in the faintest way, only making eye contact once he leaned away. The only sign that she'd been sleeping was the fading of her makeup. "There, like you were never here. More or less."

"It's time?" she asked, gazing up at him intently. He nodded, trying not to look too somber. She swallowed, though whether it was in anxiety or sadness he could not tell.

"The coast is clear, the guards have already turned in." He was tempted to leave it at that, but an infuriatingly active conscience pushed him onward. "You'll want to leave soon, before the servants are up."

Elsa stretched, a slow, meticulous rolling of her shoulders. She closed her eyes; she might have been sleeping again, were it not for the tiny jutting of her jawbone as she clenched her teeth. Adam did not prompt her further, mostly because he could not bring himself to. She took another breath - just a slight huff, really, but it was deep for her. She gazed forlornly at the creeping line of sunlight as it inexorably invaded their perch.

_Maybe she feels the same way_, he thought, unable to decide if his interpretation of her expression was too self-serving to be reasonable. Whatever the case, it only made this moment sadder.

"Alright, I'm ready," she murmured, turning her eyes to meet his.

He smiled as best he could, sweeping his arm in the direction of the ladder. "After you, then."

The horses were quiet for their return to the ground. Even Hans restrained his attitude for the moment. Elsa fixed on the stables' double doors as she awaited him on the ground. They, too were ringed by the light of dawn, like dark slabs of stone roasting in a forge. She folded her hands together and, with a cursory glance at him, made her way toward them. He didn't speak as he fell into stride with her, sliding the bolt back when the time came. When he did choose to break the silence, however, he found that he wasn't alone.

"Adam-"

"Elsa-"

She blushed. He chuckled. When she did not continue, he accepted her silent invitation.

"So… will I get any more late-night break-ins?" he asked, trying to ignore his premonitions of her answer. She averted her gaze, crossing her arms beneath her chest.

"After all," he continued, already knowing where this was going, "you still haven't told me why you were here to begin with."

"I…" She sighed, eying the sliver of sunlight cracking through the doorway. "I don't know. I… I'm sorry, I just don't know."

The look on her face might just have equaled the pain in his heart. He wanted to ask her why she had come to him _tonight_, why she never had before, why it seemed that she never would again, _why_. Instead, a simple "Ah," was all he managed. He didn't know if she meant to say more, but out of kindness for them both he nudged the door open instead. The sun painted the cobblestones of the courtyard golden-orange.

"The coast is clear," he said, stepping back and sweeping his arm toward the open doorway. "Good luck."

She hung there for a moment, gaze flickering once between him and the floor. He almost allowed himself to believe that she intended to stay. Almost.

With one last, bracing breath she made her way into the light. She squinted at first, pale skin aglow in the sun. He averted his eyes, unwilling to subject himself to this any longer.

"Adam?"

It figured that she would do that. It wasn't hard to look upon her one last time. It did hurt, though. She'd turned fully to him, framed in the brilliance of day. Even with makeup faded, skirt muddied, and hair untidy, he couldn't believe she was real.

"Thank you. For everything."

He nodded, plastering to his face the biggest smile he could. "Of course."

She swallowed, glancing warily at the barracks at the other end of the courtyard. "Go," he said, nodding once more. She smiled at him, a quick up-and-down twitch of the lips, before finally turning and briskly making her way to the shade of a covered walkway.

He closed the door, unwilling to watch her further. The stable was gray and gloomy, the lumpy silhouettes of the horses his new and only company. The lanterns had burnt out long ago; with more daylight on the way, he didn't see a point in reigniting them. He didn't see a point to doing anything right now.

The sigh he issued was loud, belligerent, and utterly insufficient to show the true level of his displeasure. Tonight had been the most amazing thing he could remember. In a luckless life, it seemed fortune had finally paid him its debt.

Now, with that wonderful payment sealed back in the castle - likely forever, without even an inkling why - he was beginning to think that luck was taking out a new loan. He groaned, slumping onto a hay bail and folding his face into his hands. There was a concerned whinny, causing him to peek through his fingers at the steed across from him.

Silver peered at him plaintively, tossing his head forlornly toward the doors. Adam sighed, pursing his lips in sympathy.

"Yeah, boy," he murmured, rising to stroke the animal's muzzle. "I know. I liked her too."


	6. 6: I Did It

**Chapter 6: I Did It**

Elsa made haste along the shadowed walkway, arms drawn tightly across her abdomen. The sun was rising ever-higher; she suspected a few of the servants were already awake. If she didn't get back to her room soon…

She made it to the door inside, finding it mercifully unlocked. She swung the wooden panel inward, but something nagged at her. Unable to completely cross the threshold, she turned back toward the stables, hoping to get a glimpse of Adam's encouraging smile one more time.

She didn't get it. The stable doors had already closed, trembling faintly as they settled against one another. There was a sharp feeling in her chest, not enough to register as true pain, but definitely real.

_You have to go_. Her mind spoke its unwanted piece, but she could refute it no longer. With a shaky breath, Princess Elsa retreated into the shadow of the hall, closing the door behind her.

Fortune followed her inside, for she found no company in the grayed indoors. The sun's rays had not yet penetrated this side of the building, leaving an aura of stark dimness that made the castle seem long-deserted.

As she rounded the corner to her room, however, Elsa found that this was not the case. Her door sat widely ajar, framed by wallpaper rippling with water damage. Her breath caught in her throat, searching her memories for the moment she had closed that door. None existed.

_No no no no…_ she worried, rushing to the doorway. She had to get back in now, before anyone could see the-

Horror paralyzed her as she cleared the doorway. She was too late.

Gerda, chief amongst the palace maids and former nanny to the princesses, looked as plump as ever. She also happened to be kneeling upon the rug in the center of her room, soaked in meltwater, a veritable fence of wash rags surrounding her. Elsa could only stare as the woman, muttering irritably to herself, pounded the carpet with each of them. It was only when Gerda reached for a bucket behind her that she was noticed at all - though Elsa would have been much more comfortable being unseen at the moment.

"Your Highness!" Gerda gasped, fortunately concealing Elsa's own. "I didn't see you there!"

"I-I'm sorry for frightening you," she managed to reply, sidling into the room proper. Her mind was racing, desperate to find something, _anything_, that could explain this.

"Oh, it's no bother to me, milady," Gerda answered, squeezing one of the rags out into the bucket. "I can't take much issue with it, seeing as you seem to rise earlier than half the servants! No wonder we never see you out and about!"

Elsa swallowed, trying to calm the racing of her heart and failing. _Conceal it, don't feel it. Don't let it-_

"I can only give my apologies for not having this mess cleaned!" Gerda continued, fortunately not looking directly at her. "Imagine my surprise, happening upon your chambers in such a state! Water everywhere, holes in the wall! I'll have to get the men in for those. Goodness, milady, whatever happened in here?"

"I…" Elsa searched desperately for the words. She _had_ to come up with something. But what? How _else_ did a torrent of water end up coating a room on the second floor? "I…"

"I did it."

Reality paused. The storm of Elsa's mind ceased, leaving only the bland recognition of one fact: she knew that voice. More than any other.

Gerda looked up, her brow knitted with confusion. Elsa turned, following her gaze to her rescuer. Anna was standing in the doorway, eyes decidedly focused on Gerda. She wore an auburn dress with a green bodice, with her hair already coupled into the twin braids she favored. She cupped one hand in another, stroking the palm of her right hand with her opposite thumb. The only unusual thing Elsa noticed were the dark circles under her sister's eyes.

_Anna_… Elsa thought, sympathy and shame welling in her heart. She hadn't been this close to her sister in _years_… and now it was happening like this.

"I beg your pardon, young lady?" Gerda asked, though Elsa could already see the nanny emerging from her.

"I was angry at you," Anna continued, sending a few fleeting glances Elsa's way. "So I took some water from the cellar and dumped it in here while you were gone. And I swung the bucket, too - that's why there are holes in the wall."

Elsa could only blink, too busy fighting to restrain her mouth from simply dropping open. Anna had to at least know her own innocence.

Anna sighed, casting her eyes to the floor. "But I… I was angry. I shouldn't have done that." She took a sidelong look at her older sister, irises shining with meaning. "I'm sorry."

Elsa opened her mouth, but no words came out. _Say something. She's doing this for _you_. After everything you've done. Say something!_

"Anna…"

"I can hardly believe it." Her tentative reply was easily steamrolled by Gerda's tone. Anna turned to the maid, eyebrows rising at how quickly the woman had crossed the distance between them. "Such behavior from a princess! It's like your lessons have taught you nothing! You are thirteen years old, young lady, and you will learn to act like it!"

She snatched Anna's wrist, unceremoniously tugging the princess along with her as she marched out of the room. "Hey!" Anna protested, weakly struggling to free herself from their ex-nanny's grip.

"We are going to speak with your father about this this instant!" Gerda continued, unflinching. "We'll see what he has to say about your behavior! Don't worry, milady, I'll send for someone to finish cleaning up here. You won't even be waiting a minute!"

Elsa pressed her lips together, managing only a swallow. Gerda marched off with Anna down the hallway, never releasing the redhead from her grip. Elsa watched them go, marooned by the doorway.

Anna looked back at her inquiringly. There were so many questions to which she deserved answers, Elsa didn't even try to figure out which one she sought. Why do you shut me out? Why is your room like that? Why aren't you helping me?

She desperately wished for something, anything, that could do just that. Short of blurting out the truth, however, she could come up with nothing but silence. The seconds passed painfully, the two women receding from Elsa more and more.

Finally, the ship passed. Anna's eyes sank toward the floor, dull and disappointed, as she and Gerda rounded the corner and vanished around the bend.

Slowly, hollowly, Elsa pressed her door shut and fell back against it. That was it. It was over. She looked upon her soaked flooring, only now realizing how vast and empty the room seemed. Even the bed, titanic compared to what she had spent the night on, seemed pathetically unable to fill the void of space around her. Funny, that it had all seemed so impossibly suffocating before.

She raised her gloves, staring at their palms, ruddied by dirt and traces of her hair. They had helped her keep her powers at bay for so long. They had been symbols of safety for almost as long as she could remember. After everything that had happened, however, she realized something else: they crippled her. Struck her dumb, filled her with fear of a world without them.

She should take them off. Free herself of these shackles, be who she was. She could do it.

_No, you can't_. She clenched her fists, sliding down the door until she had come to rest at its base. What she hadn't done in eight years, she couldn't hope to do now. She would never be able to visit Adam in the stables. She would never be able to tell Gerda the truth, and save Anna from whatever punishment she would receive. Never, never, never.

The servants would be in soon to clean her room. Elsa gently drew a finger beneath each of her eyes, wiping away the tears that had formed there. The bruise on her forehead had gone unnoticed in the brevity of this encounter, but she could not count on her bangs to hide it forever. Adam could only help her so far.

She rose, sniffing and gathering up all her strength as she made her way to the vanity across from her bed. She had a performance to put on, and the audience would be here soon.


	7. 7: A Tale of Two Sisters

**Chapter 7: A Tale of Two Sisters**

Anna squirmed against Gerda's iron grip. It wasn't like she was trying to avoid this. She'd basically volunteered, after all. Granted, that had been before she found out that Elsa was just fine with letting her take the fall for… whatever it was that had happened.

It had all happened so fast. The young princess had barely been within earshot of Gerda's question to her sister. Elsa had looked so shocked, so speechless, so… in trouble. So Anna had tried to make a diversion, to give her sister some time to think up a supporting act.

Not one of her better spur-of-the-moment plans, in hindsight.

"Your Majesty?"

Gerda gently rapped on the entrance to her father's study. The door itself was already swung wide, like it always was. That, mercifully, he did not have in common with her older sister. Trailing behind Gerda as she was, Anna was left out of sight. For the moment, all she could hear was his voice.

"Yes, Gerda? What is it?"

Anna heard the shuffling of papers. She swallowed, bracing herself for the stern and inevitable expression to which she would soon be treated. The "disappointment glare," as she had come to call it, was the most searing thing she had ever experienced. She never feared a scolding - he never needed to scold. Sometimes she wished that he did, if not to avoid the unflinchingly forlorn look she received whenever she did something wrong. He had a way of torturing with the eyes that no spanking from a nanny could ever match.

"Apologies for the interruption, milord. It's about your daughter." Gerda hauled Anna to her side.

"Ow!" she protested, casting a fleeting glance to her father. King Sigurd sat erect at his desk, a few neat piles of parchment arranged before him like a little town. His head had tilted at the sight of her, eyes narrowing just the tiniest bit in confusion. The redhead averted her gaze after that.

"Princess Anna, it seems, has felt the need to vandalize her sister's room with a bucket of water," the head maid continued. "She snuck into Princess Elsa's quarters while she was out, apparently feeling that it was an appropriate reaction to an argument had yesterday. She confessed it to the both of us not two minutes ago. Honestly I can't know about it one way or the other, but I've sent for some men to repair the water damage. I thought you might prefer to decide what her punishment may be, given that she is _old_ enough to know better."

Anna huffed off the glare she knew Gerda was affixing to her skull.

"Anna?" She reluctantly met her father's gaze. She was surprised to see that, while he was now staring at her quite intently, it was with none of the disappointment she had expected. "Is this true?"

She affixed her eyes to the massive bookshelf on the wall to her right. She didn't want to keep this up, not after Elsa had simply let her fall into this. But… if she did, Elsa would be in even more trouble than she was now.

_I'm so stupid._

"Yes," she murmured, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "I… I was mad about yesterday." She tried to match Gerda's glare when she added the next part. "And I _said_ I was _sorry_."

The maid's eyebrows quickly forced the young princess to stand down. Her father was silent for a time, allowing Anna to observe everything about the room but him. The bookcase was filled with blocky old tomes, some of which had accrued cobwebs in their age. The library's books were bad enough - the thought of reading through all of _those _seemed amazing and revolting to her at the same time. The study was adorned by a great triangular window, offering a pristine view of the fjord as the sun slowly ascended into the sky. The reddish light of early morning slanted onto the left wall, illuminating a painting of her grandfather.

King Gregers was a massive man, all sideburns and shoulderpads and stoicism. His portrait glared at her like stone, as if even he found her guilty. Anna kicked at the floor, unable to provide an argument to a man that lived only in the confines of a frame.

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Gerda. You may go now." The maid nodded and quickly paced away.

_I wish I could make her disappear that easily._

"Anna, please come inside. Close the door." Her father's tone was so measured that she couldn't decide if she felt dread or confusion, but she did as she was told. Despite her best efforts, the bolt clicked like thunder through the silence. She turned to face him, sweeping her fingertips past her ear in an unnecessary effort to keep her hair in order.

"I said I was sorry. To Elsa, I mean," she offered. The words seemed to fizzle out once they had left her tongue, so she said no more.

To her surprise, however, he smiled, eyes softening knowingly. "I'm sure you meant it. But you and I both know that you didn't flood Elsa's room."

That was the last thing she expected to hear. "We… we do?"

His smile broadened. "Yes, we do."

"How do you know that?"

"I'm the king, Anna, but more importantly, I'm your father. I know everything."

She knew that wasn't true, but _darn_ was it a lot truer than she would have thought. He rose from his seat, turning to look at the portrait of King Gregers.

"Your grandfather was a brave man. He taught me to control my emotions, to do the right thing - even when it was at my own expense. That is the essence of being a good ruler, regardless of nation."

Anna shuffled, wondering if this speech had been prepared for Elsa instead of her. She'd always had a feeling that her father practiced every word he said beforehand; he was always so well-spoken, she didn't know how he could manage it otherwise. This only proved it.

"He passed before either of you were born, as you know. But he would be proud of what you did today, Anna."

She still wondered how he could possibly know that she had lied, but she had a feeling that he wouldn't be forthcoming on that front. For now, Anna was content to let a small smile write itself onto her face. She'd never known her grandfather, but somehow her father's words had made this whole thing seem worthwhile.

"And I'm sure Elsa is very thankful for your help as well."

Ah, yes. _Elsa_. Anna frowned, shelving King Gregers's approval for something bitterer.

"Yeah… maybe," she muttered, not sure whether she wanted him to hear her or not. Regardless of what she wanted, his head quickly swiveled in her direction.

"You disagree?" he asked.

"Mm…" She tried to keep it to herself, to think of some other way to explain what she'd said, but she couldn't, she just _couldn't_, and she didn't want to tamp it down anymore. "It's just… if she was so grateful, why did she let Gerda haul me off like that?! It's not like she knew that you would know I was covering for her! Not to mention that I don't actually know why her room _was_ flooded in the first place, and I don't know how _you _know that I didn't know that, because I'm apparently the _only _one that doesn't know things, and she just… she just _let_ me do it, Papa! I thought she'd _know_ that I wanted her to…" She sighed, wrapping one hand about the other. "I don't know."

He gave her an awful look, a pitying one. She didn't want to be pitied, she wanted someone to _understand_. "Your sister loves you very much, Anna."

"Yeah, well why does she shut me out, then?! Why does she let me get in trouble for things I didn't do, just because I was trying to help her?" The words spilled from her mouth almost faster than she could think them. "Even _after _she ignores me, and tells me to leave her alone! Sometimes I just wanna… _rrrgh_ with her! And I..." She tensed her fingers into claws, strangling the empty air. Self-awareness only caught up with her a few seconds later, forcing her to sigh and drop her hands back into their nervous embrace. When she spoke again, it was with strained measuredness. "I just feel like a sister shouldn't… shouldn't let me _fall_ like that."

The words stabbed at her heart as she said them. A shroud of awfulness fell upon her in that moment, like a cloak made of rain clouds. It was all she could do not to cry, so sudden had the starkness of her statement dawned upon her. It hearkened back to a memory - no, a shadow of a memory - that she couldn't directly recall, but could still experience a thousand times over. She had fallen, and Elsa hadn't been there when she got back up.

Her father did not speak immediately, and she didn't feel the pressure of the silence anymore. She just wanted to go back to her room, to curl up in her bed, and sleep through the rest of this terrible, terrible day.

But he did speak eventually, coaxing her out of her emotional thunderstorm.

"Anna, do you remember the day you went down to play in front of the sea wall?"

She cocked her head, brow furrowing in confusion. "What? No..."

He smiled, eyes sweeping the floor. She had a feeling he was seeing something very different than polished wood. "That doesn't surprise me. You were very young; four, I think. Gerda had expressly forbidden either of you girls to go play on the rocks past the western wall. Of course, that didn't stop you. Elsa told you not to go, but she couldn't stop you, either. So you went - and Elsa told me."

Anna's eyes widened at the stream of recollections that followed: the shouts of guards, the rumbling of water, the week of bed rest. "Oh… _that _day."

"Yes, that day." He turned to her, all love and seriousness at the same time. "You fell into the water just when the guards arrived. If Elsa hadn't told me, you might have drowned." He walked around the desk and put his hands on her shoulders. She didn't remember his eyes being this shiny. "You were sick for over a week, but Elsa spent that whole time wondering if you'd ever stop being mad at her. Gerda had to promise her chocolate after every meal just so she would eat."

Anna averted her eyes. She wasn't sure if this was supposed to make her feel better, but if it was, it was failing. All she could think about now was that such a story had never happened since. The worst of it was, she _had_ been angry with Elsa's tattling. Hearing the story retold like this, however, just made her feel like a horrible human being.

Anna let her forehead fall against her father's chest. He wrapped his arms around her with a sigh, pulling her close. She felt his powerful body around hers, protective and comforting. She hadn't realized how much her eyes stung, both from sleeplessness and moisture, until now.

"You being mad at her tore Elsa apart, but she has always put your safety before what you thought of her," he said, allowing his embrace to cushion that disappointing conclusion. "That is _true_ love, Anna."

She huffed against his chest, eying the gleaming medal on his chest while allowing her thoughts to wander elsewhere.

"Then what is it _now_? What could she possibly be protecting me from?"

He sighed, pushing her back by the shoulders so that he could behold her face. There was a loving seriousness about him as he spoke.

"I cannot say. But perhaps Elsa will be ready to tell you one day herself."


	8. 8: The One and Only

**Chapter 8: The One and Only**

Stroke one. Stop. Stroke two. Stop.

Adam watched the brush slide against Olaf's mottled hair with lazy indifference. He favored a more mechanical approach these days. He counted the arcs his hand traced over the animals' flanks, watched the water swirl in their drinking buckets, and shoved the pitchfork into piles of hay with mindless precision. There was once a time he would have spoken to the horses, quipping at Hans or marveling at Silver's gullibility. Their lack of responses had never bothered him before.

Now, however, it only reminded him of what they were replacing. The days had passed, and Elsa had never been back. He had known that it would happen, somehow, and still had not expected it. He had tried to move past it, to avoid the longing he shouldn't have felt. So far he'd met with little success, if the turmoil associated with the horses meant anything.

"You're not talking, Adam."

He looked up over Olaf's back. Benedikte, the Stable Master of Arendelle, had turned away from Hans's muzzle to examine the young man. Wispy brown hair tied behind his head, cheeks creased by age, Adam's mentor was eying him with airy curiosity.

"I'm fine, if that's what you're asking," Adam replied, returning to his brushing with a bit more alacrity.

"Oh no, not at all." Benedikte waved his hand as if to banish a fly. He turned back to his own work, casually lifting Hans's upper lip to examine his teeth. "It is just that you are never not talking. Perhaps I should learn to cherish the gifts life gives me."

Adam laughed at that. At least he wasn't _entirely_ alone.

"You just start to notice how they don't talk back after a while," he said. "Starts to feel… pointless."

To his surprise, Benedikte chuckled. "If I thought you spoke to Hans for his teachings on philosophy, I would have stopped you long ago. Horses do not speak, it is true. Our words and phrases are strange to them." He cast Adam a sidelong glance as he stroked the stallion's muzzle. "But they will respond, in their own way. All creatures do."

Adam paused, though not immediately sure why. He was quite used to Benedikte's musings. They were often more valuable than he had once believed, but a powerful thought came from this one that had quite little to do with horses.

Elsa was not ambivalent to him. He _knew_ that, even if it was not powerful enough to be meaningful on its own. She, like the horses, was trapped by a barrier that had nothing to do with dislike.

Adam sighed, allowing himself to come back to Earth. Trapped by some strange political force or simply resigned to the castle of her own free will, it didn't matter. She wasn't coming out here, and he wasn't going in there.

"Hello!"

One of the stable doors swung wide, coating the room with the orange hue of dusk. Adam couldn't stop a smile from replacing his own self-pity; everyone around the castle knew that voice, though it certainly wasn't Elsa's. He turned from Olaf to greet their new visitor.

Anna rode the door inside, tiny shoes perched lithely upon its baseboard. Her red hair gleamed in the matching evening light. She hopped off the plank, allowing it to smack against the wall as she raced to meet Silver's extended muzzle.

"Good evening, Your Highness," Benedikte offered, his smile wider than Adam's. "It's a bit late for a ride, even for you."

"How's my big boy!" she exclaimed, scratching Silver's chin. She turned her eyes to the Stable Master in short order. "How many times do I have to say it, Benedikte? I'm just Anna, Princess Anna if you _have_ to. Besides, who says I'm here to ride?"

"I appreciate your humility, Your Highness. I appreciate your station even more." Benedikte chuckled, shaking his head. "As for whether or not you wish to ride with Silver today, your eyes have always been my informants."

She blinked, raising an inquiring eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means your eyes speak even more than your mouth," Adam added, turning back to cleaning Olaf's coat. "Somehow. And _I_ for one am happy to call you Anna."

She looked at him, braids whipping in the motion. "Well _thank you_, Adam. I think."

"No problem."

She smiled satisfactorily, nodding her head before turning to Benedikte again. She glanced in Silver's direction. "Soo…?"

The Stable Master arched an eyebrow, crossing his arms. "You know that I am due to head back into town soon, Your Highness."

"_Anna_! My name is _Anna_," she insisted, pursing her lips furiously. "And I can saddle him myself! It'll just be around the courtyard - it's not like I'm allowed to go anywhere else!"

"I'll help her stable him up when she's done," Adam offered, turning to the groom's kit as he wheedled horse hair from the brush. "I won't let her kill herself, I promise."

"Hey!"

Benedikte laughed, waving his hand at that imaginary fly again.

"Very well. But don't stay out after dark; I don't want a rock getting into poor Silver's shoe."

"Pfft." Anna just stroked Silver's muzzle, looking at him conspiratorially. "You know I wouldn't let that happen, don't you?"

Silver snorted his agreement, but the animal was agreeable to anything when he had attention. Benedikte turned toward the back end of the stables, passing into the shadows in search of his belongings. The Stable Master had a fine cottage in the countryside, rising up along the foothills of the fjord. Adam sometimes tried to spot it from the stable roof, one of the tiny lights glowing in the night. He'd only been there once, what felt like a very long time ago. His life had been very… different then.

Today, however, he did not want to be at Benedikte's cottage. He wanted to be in the castle, that unreachable place. The closest he ever got were the kitchens for his meals, and even then the chefs watched all the servants for theft. He was barely allowed past the pantry, let alone anywhere near the princess's bedroom.

"Hmph!"

Adam's wandering thoughts were interrupted by Anna's huff as she launched a saddle onto Silver's back. Somehow she had already led him out of his stall. Adam chuckled, noting that she had forgotten to tie the excitable equine to something before beginning her work. Snapping the groom's kit shut, he quickly corrected the thirteen-year-old's error. Anna was both focused and frenzied, never keeping track of two things at once.

_It's a good thing she's not the Queen yet_, he thought good-naturedly. _She'd probably let all of Arendelle's trade agreements slip._

And that was when it hit him.

"So, what's got the one-and-only Princess of Arendelle so desperate to go riding _tonight_?" he asked, helping her to adjust the saddle before looping the straps beneath Silver's flanks.

Anna gave him a half-glance. "I just felt like it. Geez, what is it with you and Benedikte today?" After a brief pause, however, she couldn't seem to help but add, "and I'm _not_ the only one."

"Well, maybe not. But you're certainly the only one we ever see." The statement was cathartic in its own right, if not just to provide verbal release for his own frustration over the past days. But it wasn't for that alone. "You should convince your sister to come down here sometime. Though, if she's as spirited as you, it may be best to have both Benedikte and I here at the same time. We'd want a stable to still be here once you're done with it."

"Pfft." Anna went up on tiptoe to fit the reins around Silver's muzzle. "I can't get Elsa to go _anywhere_."

There was a bitterness to her voice that aroused his interest. It appeared that Elsa had a habit of avoiding more than just himself.

"Okay then, who _does_ see her?" he asked, doing his best to keep his tone conversational. The thought of him trying to use subtlety to gain information made him want to laugh. "I mean, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't empty her own chamber pot."

"_Ew_." Anna wrinkled her nose. "I don't know, servants, I guess? What is it with you and the questions today?"

Adam held his hands up innocently, backing away and turning back toward the groom's kit. She seemed unusually grumpy today, but he was so close. "Fine, didn't mean to offend you, _Your Highness_." Anna growled, rolling her eyes. "I just figured that a _princess_ might be able to tell a humble, lowly-"

"Adam…"

"-poor, uncivilized-"

"Adam."

"-ignorant _servant_ like myself-"

"_Adam!_"

He finally allowed himself to stop. Anna huffed at him. "She doesn't let many people into her room, okay? My mother and father sometimes, and our tutor." Her eyes narrowed at Julian's mention. "The maids clean her room sometimes, I guess, but only when she's not there. When she's in the library, I mean. 'Cause she's never anywhere else other than those two." The bitterness was back, but only briefly could he register it before she got going again. "The servants bring her food to her room, but they don't really _see_ her. They just leave it at her door."

His eyes narrowed before he could stop them. _Food, was it?_

"Is _that_ what you were looking for?"

"Everything and more," he replied, bowing facetiously as he stored the knowledge for later use. "You wouldn't happen to know why she's so…" he pursed his lips, feigning a search for the right word when he'd really dawned upon it days ago. "_Reclusive_, would you?"

Anna's answer was both quicker and quieter than he had expected.

"No." She grunted, launching herself up and onto Silver's saddle. The horse shook his head as she rocked back and forth, awkwardly trying to adjust her dress whilst sitting on it. "Now come on, let's go. Bring some hay bales; I wanna try jumping."

Adam arched his eyebrow. He couldn't explain Anna's testy mood, and he was eager to put his plan into motion. But for now, the youngest princess of Arendelle had given him what he wanted. It was time to repay the favor.

The stable boy darted to the doors and opened the second one wide. A smile crept back onto Anna's face as the fading daylight illuminated her, such that he couldn't help but share it. It only grew wider, of course, when Anna kicked Silver forward. The horse took his first step, only to jolt as the rope Adam had forgotten to untie reeled him back in. He laughed as she nearly pitched forward into her mount's mane, laughed at the plan that she had inspired in him, laughed at a hope for the future that he hadn't felt in years.

So busy was he laughing, in fact, that he didn't notice Benedikte, adjusting his coat in the back of the stables, watching his apprentice with curiosity.


	9. 9: Visiting Hours

**Chapter 9: Visiting Hours**

_To my wonderful sister… no, you'll just sound stupid… Dear Anna… she's your sister, you can do better than that…_

Elsa's quill hovered fecklessly over the parchment. She'd been frozen in place for at least the last five minutes, cycling through the same handful of six hackneyed greetings. Writing always came so easy, except when it mattered. She glanced at the thin wooden box resting on her nightstand. Poetry, short stories, and personal essays rested in a stack within that box. Years of isolation had seen to her prolificity. There was even something more precious in there: a letter explaining _everything_. She'd never shared it with anyone, of course. Now, too, she could salvage no words from her guilt-ridden mind. Nothing seemed… right.

The ink lost patience with her. A black droplet fell from the tip of her quill, splashing onto the off-white page like a rotund spider. Even her own pen was fed up with her. She thrust the feather back into the pot, and the parchment joined a stack of its similarly-spattered brethren on the corner of her desk. Elsa pressed her face into her palms, trying to suppress the wave of shame and frustration overtaking her.

_She covered for you, without even knowing why,_ she thought, _and you can't even address a letter to her._

It was bad enough that she couldn't thank Anna in person. She doubted that their father had been too harsh on her; he did, after all, know the truth. That was not what bothered her. It was Anna's downcast eyes, her dulled, sullen expression of disappointment, that bothered her. Her bruised forehead had healed almost completely, her father had said nothing about her being out of her room, and the servants had repaired her wall without question. No trace of her birthday fiasco remained, save for a few torturous memories. They drove her to write to Anna, yet prevented her from finding the right words.

_No letter will ever be enough._

Elsa spread her hands enough to gaze at her door. She could picture Anna standing there, taller than she remembered, but still very much the same. _It's been years since you've gotten that good of a look at her. You know that?_

Yes, she did. Anna was still Anna, but she was growing up. Her face was less round, she'd started to wear makeup now, and the proportion between her waist and hips had become more noticeable. Elsa's little sister was leaving childhood behind.

_A childhood you missed._

She turned a forlorn gaze at the pile of failed letters. They looked so very _blank_, even marred as they were by spots of ink. So inadequate. How sad was it, that she had to write a letter to someone living under the same roof? She suddenly felt very foolish, trying at this. Even if she worded the letter perfectly, got Anna to forgive her for years of neglect, what then? Continue to slam the door in her face for the next eight, ten, twenty, fifty years? Until they both grayed and died?

A terrible conclusion wound itself into her brain. A letter could do _nothing_. It was better for Anna to hate her. Better for her to be alone.

Elsa turned her gaze on herself. First it was the typical thrall of her attention: her gloves. Her eyes wandered, onto the folds of her dress and the horizon line of her breast. Her journey ended on the mirror to her left. It banished the illusions of her own perspective, showing just how much she had curled over the desk in front of her. Adam would have chided her obvious anxiousness.

_Adam_. He stained her memory as much as the ink on Anna's letters. She had replayed their conversation in all its episodes, multiple times a day. That had been her routine: stress about Anna, dwell upon Adam. So it went, an endless cycle, slowly consuming all else. Her classes with Julian remained unfinished. Her etiquette lessons barely stuck. Her vanity was strewn with various ribbons and perfumes, unorganized in a way that it had never been before.

She had room for only those two redheads now.

If Anna had pushed Elsa toward darkness, however, Adam kept a lantern shining. She could see his easygoing smile in her mind's eye, feel his fingers as he toyed with her hair. It had gotten to the point that she did not even allow history to bind her remembrance. She imagined what might have been if their discourse had taken a different turn. What if she were bolder, or he shyer? Perhaps he'd chosen to sit beside her, rather than across from her. Perhaps he'd perceived her stress, learned of her powers, failed to be afraid of her. Maybe he'd leaned just close enough, and she'd had the courage to-

_Okay. That's quite enough._

An self-chiding smile was birthed upon her lips. Adam made her feel terrified and brave, hot and cold, foolish and wise, vulnerable and safe. Yet there was only so much good that could come of wanting the unobtainable. She missed his friendship, more and more every day - but she could not let that consume her. She could not go to him, and it wasn't like Adam was going to come knocking on her-

_Tap tap tap._

Elsa barely strangled the gasp that sprang to her lips. Anna knocked five times, her father rarely did at all. Her mother's was softer, Julian's a quick double-rap. But this was… three times. Unknown. Mysterious.

Elsa glanced at the grandfather clock to her right. It was new, replacing a predecessor riddled with water damage. She was surprised to see that it was noon.

_Lunch. Your lunch is here._

Elsa let out a sigh both exasperated and relieved. It was just a servant. She was unaccustomed to them knocking at all; most knew to simply leave her food at the door for her convenience.

"You may leave the tray, thank you," she said politely. The last thing she expected was a response.

"'_Thank you._' Thank you, thank you, thank you… I swear, it's all you know how to say."

She was almost running to the door before she knew what else to think. That voice could only belong to one person. She had never opened that door, for all of Anna's pleas, yet she now found herself unbolting the lock as quickly as her fingers enabled her.

She cracked the door open; Adam's smug grin was waiting for her. "Hello, Elsa."

"Adam, what are you _doing_ here?" The words evoked agony as she spoke them.

He laughed incredulously, although he did her the service of muffling the noise. "What do you think? To surprise you. Seems I got that part right, at least."

Her grip tightened on the door knob, the only way she could think to relieve the conflict inside of her. She wanted him to stay… wanted nothing more… but he couldn't. Someone would see him.

"Adam, I'm sorry, but… but you have to go. You can't be seen here."

He dropped his head to her level, aiming one green eye through the cracked doorway. "Don't you worry about that. I'm in charge of more than just the stables now." His eye flickered down toward his own body, though she could not see it through the door. "If you open the door, I can show you."

She had a suspicion already, but if that were the case, their discussion would be even more out of place.

"Adam…"

"Elsa." He leveled his gaze at her, unmistakably serious. "There's nothing to be afraid of."

She swallowed, knowing that to be false. Still, Adam was not going anywhere fast, and every second that went by was another second that a servant, or worse, _Anna,_ would walk by and see their conversation.

It was with an exasperated sigh that she swung the door wide. Adam's appearance had indeed changed since their last meeting. A tray rested in his hands, replete with a small sandwich, bowl of soup, and tea kettle. His hair was combed and washed. The smudges that had once covered his cheeks were gone, leaving only peach-colored skin. His plain working clothes had been replaced with a pine green jacket and breeches. A stripe of violet ran down the sides of his legs, until they were swallowed by knee-high socks. He looked…

_Handsome._

"I know… it's pretty, isn't it?" he asked, glancing down at his new attire. "Part of the whole deal, unfortunately."

She couldn't help but smile a bit, but she the gaping openness of her door was impossible to discard.

"Please, come in," she managed, stepping back to open the door wider. Adam did as he was told, setting the tray on her desk while she shut the door. It was only when the lock clicked, when the threatening vulnerability had faded, that it truly sunk in.

_You're not alone in here._ Sitting with Adam in the stables had been one thing; now he was in her sacred space. The vault in which she could count on being alone, whether she liked it or not, had two occupants now.

A light, fluttery sensation invaded her chest. She placed a hand on the door to steady herself. It was not the pounding of fear that she was feeling. It was a certain _airiness_, as if she could float off the ground at any moment. A mix, perhaps, of fear and pleasure. A good pain.

She felt a warmth in her cheeks as she turned to him. He had turned away from her, slowly wandering about the room as he took it all in. His bushy terracotta hair seemed to devour his head, the way he turned it upward to gaze at the rosemaling on her ceiling.

"I have to say, it beats a panel of wood and a bedroll," he said, shaking his head in wonderment. "And all of this, just for you?"

She nodded, following his gaze to the high ceiling above them. "It can certainly seem… empty, sometimes."

He looked at her appraisingly. There was a slight narrowing of his eyes, a levelness of his other features. It wasn't hostile, but the directness made her uncomfortable.

"Have you been well?" she managed, defaulting to the most polite thing she could think of. The amused smile that followed just made her feel trite.

"As good as I've ever been," he replied, gesturing to his garb. "I've even found new employment."

She smiled, but she couldn't help but feel guilty. This could not continue, probably not even into the next few minutes.

"You're not working in the stables anymore?"

"Night shifts, still. I want to keep my visiting hours open."

She smiled at that. She wanted to leave her position by the door, but she forced herself to stay. He had to leave. She hated that, _despised _that, but it had to happen.

"Did you make it back here okay? That morning, I mean."

Elsa folded her arms across her stomach. "Adam... why are you here?"

He blinked. "To surprise you. I think I said that."

She gave him a pained, pleading look. "And you became a serving boy just for that?"

"No." She was surprised by how easily it seemed to come out of his mouth. The rest of his thoughts seemed more carefully selected, however. He rested his palm against her desk, staring distantly into the rug. "You seemed… alone. Like you needed a friend. I'm not sure why someone like you wouldn't be drowning in them, but you seemed to need one all the same." A chuckle ghosted from his lips, and he shook his head as if to scold himself. When his eyes locked onto hers, she felt pinned into motionlessness. "I figured I'd volunteer."

Elsa sighed, unable to look him in the eye. She wanted with all her heart to tell him to stay, to have his warm, knowing smile to enjoy forever. That was why she had to end this now; she didn't have the strength to tread this line much longer.

"That's… that's very kind of you, Adam," she murmured, offering him the most conciliatory smile she could. "But you really have to go. I'm… I'm sorry."

She ignored the faltering of her voice, using the last of her resolve to turn the doorknob and swing her door wide. All she could do now was pray that the stable-turned-busboy would leave on that note.

How foolish she was.

Adam swallowed, licking his lips before turning his eyes upon her. His chin tilted upward in an indignation that made her wilt.

"I need you to tell me something, Elsa." There was a hardness to his voice, every bit as resolved as she was not. She forced herself into eye contact. "I know who I am. I know that I scrape the shoes of your family's horses, comb the fleas out of their hair. Hell, even delivering meals to actual humans is a recent promotion for me." He laughed mirthlessly, gesturing to his crisp uniform. "I don't need you to tell me that. But I do need you to tell me - and I mean the absolute truth - do you hate me?"

Her teeth ground together. "Adam…"

"No." He raised a finger, his jaw muscles flaring. "I helped you. I waited days to hear a word, a sign, _anything_. I took a new _job_ to see you again. Elsa, I…" His voice faltered, but the emptiness of his sentence struck her numb with the possibility of what might have followed. "Please, you owe me that. An honest answer is all I'm asking for. Do you hate me?"

She shook her head, as much to block out his unavoidable gaze as indicate her response. "No."

"Do you _dislike _me?"

"No, I-"

"Then that's it."

She closed her eyes and clutched her arms tighter. "Adam, you don't understand. You… you have to go."

"No, I have to stay." She looked back at him. His expression had softened, transfixing her with concerned emerald eyes. "You just said you don't hate me. I don't know why you feel that you have to shut yourself in here, or why you were in the stables that night. And if you don't want to tell me what those reasons are, I'll never ask. It doesn't matter. _You_ matter."

She remained motionless. The only movement she could manage was the pounding of her heart as it spread uncertainty through her soul. She had rebuffed Anna a thousand times before, but something watered her resistance now to the point of flaccidity. Adam took a step toward her, eyes pinched with concern.

"I know that if you haven't asked for help so far, you never will. But… I wouldn't be _alive_ if someone hadn't stepped in for me when I didn't want it to happen."

She didn't know what to say. Without even the suspicion of her situation, Adam could speak to her as if he knew everything. She hadn't had a conversation this honest in eight years. He stared at her, awaiting a response she did not know how to give.

"Elsa. Please. Trust me."

Trust him. She _did_ trust him. She had from the very moment he'd ever first her, hanging off of that that ladder in the dimness of the stables.

Her fingers traced the silver knob dwelling beneath them. Which direction she moved that knob meant everything. If it remained motionless, that door would hang open until Adam had no choice but to leave. If she left it closed, he could stay with her in secret, for hours if they so desired. She thought about the two futures, of all they represented. The secure torture of the former, and the blind unknowingness of the latter. She could _choose_ now.

In the end, there was only one answer.

Slowly, softly, Elsa stepped away from the door. Her hand lingered upon the knob for one last second, dangling over the final precipice. When she pulled it away, she had the strange sensation of falling.

Adam was smiling when she looked back at him. That warm, lopsided, blessed smile. She couldn't help but sheepishly share in his expression.

"Thank you," he murmured. She hadn't realized how close he'd come to her, now only a few feet away. She looked up at him, a few inches taller, emerald irises intently returning her gaze. If she had thought to say something, she had forgotten it. She felt…

Adam blinked suddenly, coughing and readjusting his jacket. He glanced at the grandfather clock to his right. She felt the creeping suspicion that the last few moments had been a good deal longer than they felt. Adam cast his eyes about her room, licking his lips as he finished clearing his throat. She felt a warmth spread across her cheeks, and she had a most girlish urge to smile.

"So… what _do _you do in here?" he asked, eyes darting everywhere except at her. She blinked, surprised by the forwardness of his question. Her days were always busy - she couldn't remember the last time she hadn't had something on her plate. But it was all books - reading, writing, etiquette lessons, tax codes. She suddenly felt very… _boring_.

Unable to find an answer that didn't shame her, the princess resorted to praying that he would fill the silence again. He did.

"I'm sorry, that sounded a lot less rude in my head," he admitted, scratching the back of his head. "Horses don't get mad at you for being nosy."

"No, it's fine," she assured him. _The problem's not you._ "It's just…" She looked down at her hands, encased in their immutable white gloves. "Nobody's ever asked me that before."

"Elsa," he said softly, bending to enter her field of view. "Whatever you need to tell me, it'll never leave my head. I promise."

She believed him. That wasn't the problem; she didn't want her life to _enter_ his head. She could never tell him her greatest secret… and without that, what kind of fool would she look like?

"I know," she said, clasping her hands together and smiling more for his sake than her own. "It's just not very exciting."

"Hey." Adam's index finger hooked itself under her chin before leveling her gaze with his. She had to stifle another gasp at his surprising forwardness. Not unpleasant. But still surprising. "I bet it's more exciting than you think."

His eyes, suddenly so close and entrapping, were a bit overwhelming. She sidled back a bit, heart racing, before the door pressed against her back. She gasped; Adam settled his weight on his back foot, widening the space between them.

For some reason, she felt like a coward.

"Do you play any instruments?" he asked, glancing about the room again. She took the opportunity to sidle away from the door.

"The piano, for a few years."

"Piano?" His eyes fell back to her, brow raised. "Wow, I don't think _I'm_ worth as much as one of those."

She laughed. Devoid of her entrapment, she felt more at ease already. "We can't all play the flute."

"World'd be better that way. Less expensive."

"Then what would we spend our money on?" she asked playfully. She remembered now why she had missed him. She could be who she was with him; no powers, no enigma, no years of debt that she owed Anna. Adam was fresh, charming, and as she was now noticing, rather handsome.

"Oh, I don't know. Books for the poor, houses for the poor, _bread_ for the poor…" He waved his finger at her food tray. "Whatever those wrinkly things are…"

She brought her hand to her upper lip in a vain attempt to conceal her giggling. "Those are dates."

"_Dates_? That's what they're called?" He beheld the tiny dried fruits appraisingly. "I'll leave those for you, then."

She smiled as a small silence began to grow between them, quite unlike the silences of the past. She almost didn't _want_ to speak - only to revel in the fact that, for a few minutes, she was not alone.

"So, shall we? Rude or not, I for one am starving." Adam slipped a hand into his coat pocket, revealing a small biscuit. Elsa blinked, finding herself alarmed by the crumbly little thing.

"Is that what they feed you?" she asked, a surprising hint of indignance creeping up in her chest. He glanced at her and shrugged indifferently.

"This? Oh, no." He laughed and waved it before him. "I had to sneak this out. They feed us reindeer stew, though I'm not sure I ever found actual reindeer in it. I'm new, though."

Her brow tensed at the thought. Adam did not deserve gruel for his meals. He did not pay the cooks, but that did not mean it wasn't their job to feed him properly. To feed _everyone_, for that matter. Father couldn't have known about this; she would have to speak with him about it later.

_How will you explain knowing about it in the first place?_

_Oh, I'll think of something._

"May I?"

She blinked, returning to reality from her inner dialogue. Adam had gestured to one of the new chairs opposite the clock. "I'd hate to get crumbs on such a nice floor."

She smiled at that, nodding. He hoisted the piece of furniture like it were made of wool, laying the seat beside her desk. "Ladies first."

She felt another wave of warmth wash across her cheeks as she made her way to her own chair, still pushed out from when she had let him in. The pile of Anna's would-be letters remained where she had left them, forgotten until now.

_He never asked about them_. She tucked the loose papers into a drawer, wondering to herself if he had chosen to avoid the subject.

Adam dutifully waited for her to sit before he followed suit. His attempt at politeness was commendable, but she did not miss his multiple glances at her tray. A neat, quarter-cut sandwich, a bowl of the aforementioned dates, a steaming cup of tea, and a circular arrangement of glazed apple slices certainly caught the eye more than a crumbly biscuit.

He had nearly put the mockery of a meal into his mouth before she could no longer stand it.

"Adam," she offered, pushing the apple slices toward him. "Please, help yourself."

She saw a streak of red flash across his cheeks, and it made her smile broaden. "Oh, no, it's not that bad. Really. You should-"

"I can never finish anyway. And besides…" She eyed her food, a sudden sentimentality overcoming her. "You went through great effort to check on me. It's the… least I can do."

She looked up to Adam's lopsided grin. "Well in that case, Princess Elsa, I would be honored to share your meal," he said, delicately plucking one of the slices off the tray and biting into it. His eyes widened, examining the its remaining half as if it were one of the golden fruits of myth. "So, _so_ honored."

She laughed, bringing a hand to her mouth to hide her cachinnations. He shrugged helplessly.

"_What_? They're a lot better than what they feed the horses." He took another bite, gesturing to her pointedly. "Not that I've ever eaten those, mind you."

She smiled, sipping at her tea. The warmth flowing down her throat was always an interesting sensation; the cold surrounded her, and though it never touched her, warmth was still a rare occurrence. Today, however, she was not finding it so hard to come by.

"You'll make a good queen someday, you know."

She forgot the tea. Adam was gazing at her again, his eyes slightly pinched, the corners of his mouth tilted upward. He looked so… rested, as if he could not be bothered to move for the world. He glanced down at her depleted plate of slices. "I mean that. Not many royals would share like this."

She sighed. Anna would. Her mother and father would. Adam meant well, but he was wrong.

"I don't think so," she murmured, setting the tea down. "I don't think I'm as special as you might think."

"You might be surprised." Adam looked about, brow furrowing when it came to rest on her nightstand. "What's that?"

She felt a prickling surge of embarrassment as he rose to inspect the box of writings on her nightstand. She had never given thought to how ornate it might look to an outsider - gold leafing threaded around its edges, a crocus engraved onto its lid.

"That? Oh, it's nothing. Just a few things."

_That made sense. What a stupid thing to say._

"Really? It's a nice box for just a few-" Adam tilted the lid upward to get a better look at the engraving, but it had other ideas. Lacking any sort of clasp, the box's bottom fell back onto her nightstand with an audible _clud_. Elsa's heart skipped a beat as the lid slipped and clattered to the floor, leaving a record of everything she'd felt in the last five years revealed. "...things."

She was at his side faster than was dignified, hurriedly scooping up the box lid to replace it before he could see anything embarrassing. It was not until she saw Adam's eyes darting randomly, _aimlessly _across the pages that she paused.

"You…" She hesitated, the question seeming too bold to say aloud. _Get it together._ "You can't ...?"

Adam closed his eyes in a frown, turning away from her a second later. She eyed him as he paced away from her, only placing the lid on the box as an afterthought.

"If it makes you think less of me, I get it," he said. His voice was soft, weakened in a way that broke her heart. "It's not like I didn't have chances to learn. It's just… _mmn_."

He made a face that she knew so well. She could practically see the words trapped behind his lips, half-explanations that only made sense if they stayed out of the air. The way his lips folded inward, the crow's feet formed around his eyes. This was the face of loathing to nobody but the self.

* * *

><p>He couldn't look her in the eye. God, how <em>stupid<em>! _Let's just open up her belongings, that always goes well. Not like it belongs to her. Or is shaped exactly like paper, which you never learned to use. Idiot, idiot, idiot!_

It had all been going so well that he hadn't given the box a second thought. He'd just meant to look at it, to admire its craftsmanship. Looking back, even that was idiotic. The awareness of passing time was not lost to him, but he could not muster the courage to look Elsa in the eye even as the silence between them expanded. _Princess_ Elsa. What would she think him now? A rude, begging, illiterate child was the _best_ case.

_Bah! Who was I kidding. It was only a matter of time._ Looking back, it was a wonder he had convinced himself of this… fantasy. That was the only fair word. And for what? That she might want him as more than a friend? What signs had she given, aside from those he'd had days to exaggerate? _It's over._

Adam opened his mouth for apologies and farewells. He had better leave while some measure of pride was left.

Yet his own voice was not what filled the air between them.

"What if I taught you?"

All reluctance to make eye contact with her was quickly overcome by shock. Elsa was returning his gaze with measured steadiness, her gloved fingertips playing at the crook of her elbow. "We have plenty of books in the library, and I use enough parchment that nobody would notice if I started using more. I'd be happy to… but only if you'd like to..." Nothing followed her trailing offer, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He couldn't believe his ears.

"I… Elsa, I don't… I can't accept this," he breathed, struggling to find thoughts that didn't have to do with hugging her. "You said I couldn't be seen here… I'm not a fast learner, this could take months, _years_-"

"Then I won't do it for free." She smiled a little, which only made him want to wrap her in his arms even more. "I'll teach you about what I know, and you'll share your knowledge with me. What happens with the staff, the places you've been, the things you've learned." She tilted her head slightly, elegantly, and he remembered why she was the princess around here. "How's that?"

He couldn't help but furrow his brow. "That's hardly a fair… 'deal,' if that's what you want to call it. You _live_ here; you can walk around and see for yourself, any time you want."

The probing comment was out before he could think better of it. He had not forgotten Elsa's mysterious reclusiveness.

To her credit, the lapse in her expression was only brief. She was getting cleverer by the minute, it seemed. She raised her hand to her lips in a slight giggle before countering, "Now, I don't see why I'd have to do that with a vassal to do my bidding."

"A _vassal_? Is that what I am now?"

"Princesses can have them, you know."

They were both laughing by then, cheeks warmed and something settling more deeply within their spirits.

"Well then, Princess Elsa," he said officiously, taking a knee before her and placing one fist on the floor. "I would be a fool if I did not humbly accept your offer."

She laughed again at what could only be a very un-practiced oathtaking stance, but he didn't mind. That laugh was rapidly taking its place among his favorite sounds.

* * *

><p><strong>This story is not dead. I will not accept it. Progress may still be slow, but there is more to this story and by thunder, it will be told!<strong>


	10. 10: Routines

**Chapter 10: Routines**

In the weeks that followed Adam's first visit, Elsa found herself settling into a routine that, but a short time ago, would have been relegated to her dreams. She woke up and studied at the rise of the sun, devouring all the material that Julian could provide her with new energy. She raced through architecture, history, foreign language, legal systems, and mathematics with equal vigor. Soon after came her etiquette lessons, shared with her mother over tea. Then came an hour of freedom during which she prepared the materials for a very different class.

Adam made it a point to bring her lunch every day. He bribed the other kitchen boys with his own rations, if need be - it gave Elsa a certain kind of pleasure to share her lunch anyway. While they ate he would tell her of his life during the last two years, apprenticing in the stables under Benedikte. Elsa could not recall ever meeting the man, but it was clear that Adam adored him.

"He took me in," Adam had said, nibbling at the white flesh of a pear slice. "It's not always easy, sharing your house with animals. But it was more than I'd had in a long time."

Adam never mentioned his life before that time, and she never felt justified enough to pry. She had kept quite a few secrets from him - it seemed only fair that he be allowed the same right. Adam had no shortage of life experience to share regardless. The royal stallion had kicked him through the doors of the stable once, leaving a U-shaped scar on his chest that he had readily shown her. Elsa had had little success at suppressing the flush that followed.

In another instance, Adam had been absent several days. The nagging thoughts did not take long to poison her mind, from the very first time that she found her lunch tray abandoned at her door.

_He doesn't want to see you anymore. He has a job somewhere else. Your parents found out about him..._

She never fully believed the jabs of her subconscious, but that didn't stem the tide of relief that came with his return a week later. The cause of his absence had been small enough: he had knocked the head chef's hat onto the stove.

"I think he told the guards to keep an eye on me; either way, I was on a bad list. Figured I wouldn't take chances."

Her favorite story, however, was the one in which he had delivered a foal.

"I'd watched Benedikte do it a few times," he explained, "but I never expected him to step aside and ask me to do it. Honestly, I think I was shaking more than the mare."

He chuckled, gaze distant as he watched the memory unfold. So lost had he been that he neglected to cut out the elements of the story that would apply to… all female creatures. She'd fidgeted, smiled, and even tried to drop a few hints if he would please, _please_ not describe _that_. It was not until he smiled and looked back up at her that the story became forever etched in her mind.

"There's something… surreal about it, though, once all the disgusting parts are over," he murmured, drumming his fingers against the side of his chair. "You're left there, with a little horse. It didn't exist a year ago, but here it is. It's… eh, I don't really know how to explain it."

She realized something about him then, lips pursed pensively as he wondered. It made her both terrified and excited.

After they'd eaten, Elsa fulfilled her part of their "bargain." She introduced him to the Swedish alphabet, and then later how to form words with those letters. Early forays into penmanship proved futile, so she focused on reading. The way Adam pronounced new words as he wended his way through each letter made her laugh on more than one occasion.

"Ack-two-all… hm…"

"Which forms…?"

"Ac… actual."

"Yes! Good!"

He cast a sardonic glance out of the corner of his eye. "Thank you. All in a day's work for your resident circus monkey."

She blinked, unsure of how to reply. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"_Kidding,_" he chuckled, smile returning. "Though at this rate, I guess it's a viable career path."

After the early stages, however, Adam shocked her more than anything. He progressed faster than Anna ever had, and within a few weeks he was ready to return to writing. His proficiency in reading worked its wonders, and only his poor penmanship got in the way. Elsa found herself unforgiving on that front.

"You did it again," she murmured, frowning. "Lower-case U's have a stem, Adam. You might as well be drawing your C's sideways."

"Isn't that what they are?"

She arched an eyebrow, peering over the top of the parchment at him. The surrendering waver he gave her felt empowering.

"I know, I know. I'll work on it; but you have to admit, I won't be writing letters to kings and queens."

"You might be one day," she said.

"I will?"

She lowered the page, but no explanation came to mind. She'd assumed he would… that they'd…

She had no way to even think it, let alone say it.

* * *

><p>A few days after her embarrassing misstep, Adam arrived slightly earlier than usual. She had let down her hair to adjust the pinning of her braid; it had been sagging since her etiquette lessons, and was driving her insane.<p>

"Come in," she said softly, as per the norm. Couldn't have servants overhearing.

Adam sidled in, closing the door softly.

"Can't stay today, I - oh, um, hello."

Elsa frowned in puzzlement, turning away from the vanity. "What? Why is that?"

Adam looked at her… and looked at her. She almost wanted to check her dress for a horrible stain before he seemed to find his words. "Sorry, I'm not used to you… being over there. Anyway…" He set her meal on the desk, strangely focused on its woodwork. "Benedikte needed me to go into town with him. Get some things. For the horses, I mean." He coughed and stood straight, only to lean back down to grab some parchment and a quill. She was at a loss; she had never seen him like this.

"But here's something for you to examine…" he murmured, quickly scribbling a few notes onto the page. "You can… grade this… if you like." He jabbed the quill at the page, leaving a barely-visible period to finish both his verbal and written statement. He was at the door before she could say anything in response.

"I'm sorry, I have to go," he said, lips wrenched in an apologetic pout. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"A-alright."

The door clicked behind him, leaving her to be befuddled alone. _What was that about?_ He seemed flustered in a way that she had never seen before. Even upon inspection, his note left little explanation either.

"'_I finished_'… Adam, dot your i's… '_my'_ … what does that even say?" She sighed, moving on to the next line.

_You look nice with your hair down._

She swallowed. Now it was her turn to be flustered.

* * *

><p>The rest of her routine was much unchanged. Julian arrived in the early afternoon, inspecting her work and expanding upon her reading material. Once per week her father would join her for afternoon tea, both to check on her and to help prepare her for the trials of leadership. He would propose to her various problems, quandaries, petitions, or even riddles - anything to challenge her mind in ways that lessons did not. Sometimes it felt like a game, others like a test, but Elsa had long treasured these days with her father - and since meeting and listening to Adam, she had plenty about which to talk. She put forth several proposals dealing with the servants' pay, quarters, and meals, many of which he found not only surprising, but worth considering. Those that he rejected received a strong reasoning that only strengthened her knowledge of the castle environment. For the first time in a great while, Elsa felt <em>alive<em>.

But there had been a one more development after her meeting with Adam, and it was the greatest of all.

Her powers were silent. She had not accidentally frozen, chilled, or even cooled anything since that terracotta-haired boy had come into her life. It had gotten to the point that she would, when she could be sure she was alone, take off the gloves and form a few rivulets of frost. Just to be sure they had not gone completely.

She could not explain the quietude of her powers, but she could revel in it. Everything she did was a small bit better, sapped of the constant fear that she might be discovered - or worse, cause harm. The one barrier that had always held her back was gone, and behind it she found daring. She began to visit Adam at night in the stables, greeting Silver's excited whinnies while Adam played his finished flute. She even wore her braid down once. Adam didn't say anything, but he did smile when he saw her.

To anyone but Adam, Elsa's life seemed unchanged. Despite its appearance, however, she had found freedom, a small measure of contentment, and something else that she had always assumed would be trapped within the contents of her novels.

Most importantly, for the first time in eight years, she felt _brave_. So brave, in fact, that she felt ready to ask her parents about one last thing...

* * *

><p>"Anna, if you play with your food any more it will start playing with you."<p>

The junior princess of Arendelle pursed her lips at her mother's comment. _At least then it would be _fun_._

She sighed, stabbing the pallid cauliflower and holding it at eye-level.

"I can't do it. It's too white. I can almost _see _through it."

Her father laughed. "Anna, we can't eat fruit tarts every night."

"I can."

Her mother laughed. "We know _you_ can. But a princess must-"

"Mind her food like her guests," she droned back, finally stuffing the translucent vegetable into her mouth. It was like eating wet paper. "Henry's lucky I love him."

Her father smiled at the reference to their head chef. "I'll tell him you said that. Though I imagine the chocolates he gives you help with that."

Anna's eyebrows shot up, alarm rising up in her throat.

"_Hoe dud you know dat_?" she asked.

"Because he lets me have chocolates too."

It was all Anna could do to swallow. She hadn't heard that voice in _months_.

_I will eat all my cauliflower. I will eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I will have it stirred into my tea. Just please, please, _please_ let this be real._

In the doorway of the dining room, standing in complete defiance of reality, was Elsa. She looked different: clad in an autumnal dress of oranges and flecks of golden brown, with golden velvet sleeves and a long, loose braid. It was a good different.

Anna looked at her parents. Based on their knowing smiles, they could see this too.

"Elsa, how nice of you to join us," their mother said, her smile a little wider than normal. Anna's sister merely smiled as Kai swept in to pull out her chair.

"Thank you. It's nice to join you."

Somehow, in the next few seconds, all eyes turned to Anna. She wasn't sure how or why, just that suddenly she felt pressured to speak.

"I… hi Elsa," she said, only thinking to add in a smile seconds after she'd spoken. Then she decided not to. _Stop. I'm mad at her! She let me get in trouble!_

"I like your dress," Elsa replied, nodding to the green, silver-laced fabric of her bodice. "It goes well with your hair."

"Oh, thank you! I… I like your hair too!" _Okay, not my _best _line._

Elsa laughed, touching her fingertips to her lips. "Thank you."

"Can I get you anything, ma'am?" Kai asked, bending in on her right.

"Just tea, thank you," Elsa replied, manifesting what could very well have been the most charming smile that Anna had ever seen. _Stay. Mad._

"Of course. And I hear you are to thank for the new kitchen pans; very insightful, Your Highness."

Elsa nodded, turning back to Anna as he strode away.

"So, Anna, what did you do today?"

"Oh, nothing much," she said, stuffing another piece of cauliflower into her face to give herself time to think. "I just kind of… walked around. And rode my horse, for a little bit. His name's Silver, in case you didn't know. I'm not sure if you hear much about… well, not that I mean you don't hear, obviously you _hear_, what I meant was-"

Elsa interrupted her with a laugh that was quite preferable to what else might have escaped the younger princess's mouth.

"Actually, I did know about Silver," Elsa said. "You'll have to introduce me to him sometime."

"Really? I mean - okay, I will! Definitely! You want to after dinner?"

"I don't think she meant this instant, Anna," her mother laughed, laying her napkin on the table.

"I'm sure she'll be able to tell you all about what she means," her father added, rising and taking his wife's hand. "Your mother and I have an appointment to keep. Anna, you may have dessert when you've finished your cauliflower."

The redhead transfixed the three sprouts lying mockingly on her plate. _Damn it_.

"Good night," Elsa called.

"Good night, Elsa."

The door of the dining room swung closed, and with a click, they were alone.

"Okay, what's going on?" Anna asked, springing upright in her chair. Elsa blinked, utter confusion spreading across her features. "You never come down to dinner. Why are you coming down to dinner?"

Her older sister's response was cut off by the return of Kai. A saucer lay in his hands, cradling a small white teacup with a purple stand and golden rim.

"Be careful, my dear, it's very hot," he warned, laying the cup from Elsa's right. "Would you like anything, Miss Anna?"

"Me? Oh, no thank you," she replied in what she hoped was a convincing smile. Her fingers were mercilessly kneading one another beneath the table. She needed to hear Elsa's answer. Like, now.

"Thank you, Kai," Elsa said, flashing that irresistible smile again. "We'll let you know if we need anything."

The butler nodded. To his credit, he took his leave hastily. Elsa tucked a wisp of platinum hair behind her ear, softly blew on the tea, and watched as little wisps of steam curled into the air above her.

Everything except answer the question, basically.

"Elsa…" Anna swallowed, mustering the courage and willpower to be confrontational with a sister she wanted nothing more than to love. "Why did you-"

"A thank you." Elsa sipped at her tea and hummed as she swallowed. When she spoke again, she'd already transfixed Anna with her crystalline blue eyes. There was a warmth behind them, a warmth that annihilated any last vestiges of resentment that had built up in Anna's heart. "I came to say thank you to a sister that covered for me when I needed it."

Anna stuffed another piece of cauliflower down to hide the oafish grin that would have covered her face otherwise. It wasn't just because Elsa had finally shown her gratitude, either; everything was going to change. She just knew it.


	11. 11: Like a Handprint on my Heart

**Chapter 11: Like a Handprint on my Heart**

"I should probably stop checking, huh?"

Olaf merely snorted his response, but Adam's question answered itself. He kicked back onto his bedroll, trying to put the stable doors out of mind as much as he'd put them out of sight. Elsa was late. They didn't have a formal arrangement to meet; technically, he had no reason to be expecting her at all. Lately, however, she always turned up. It had become a routine worth the lessened hours of sleep.

_You're in love with a princess._ Unable to totally rid his mind of the platinum blonde heir of Arendelle, he settled for something outside the present moment. _You're in _love_ with a _princess_._

A few months ago, he would have laughed at himself. He still thought it funny, hilariously stupid, even. But even knowing that, he didn't care. He was crazy. Elsa was making him crazy. He knew everything that he should - they were worlds apart, Elsa had secrets that he knew she wasn't telling him, they certainly could never _wed_ - but he simply didn't make the conclusion to which those facts pointed.

"You know, guys… I don't know how this will turn out," he murmured, rolling onto his side to peer at the horses below. "And it's true, there's nothing I can imagine that would end well. Hell, I don't even know if she feels the same way, though I honestly think it's possible. Hard to tell, with her."

The equines continued munching their hay, safe and sound from the November night's chill beneath their blankets. At least he knew they were listening.

"But the thing is…" He hung his arm over the edge of his platform, swinging it lazily through the empty air. "I don't care. I could spend my whole life without ever touching her… just to know her. Just to watch her smile. She's worth that. Worth _anything_."

Hans snuffled, looking up at him from the corner of his round, black eye. It was, in the history of the stallion's many stares, the most sardonic Adam had ever seen.

Adam blinked. "Ever supportive, you bronze-haired bas-"

His alliterative riposte was interrupted by a soft knock. Hans dropped into the background as he ran through possible greetings on his way to the door. _Good evening, Ms. Elsa… no, I'm saying hello, not wooing her… You're late… yeah, she'll get a kick out of that…_

When he undid the lock and swung the door wide, however, all of his planning became moot. Elsa wore a navy blue dress. The black cuffs and neck of the gown were decorated in pine-green rosemaling, accompanied by a matching green cloak that seemed to shimmer by the lamplight behind him. A basket was draped about her elbow, more dark green cloth obscuring its contents. What caught his attention most, however, was the long braid snaking over her shoulder and down to her waist. Looks like she'd seen his note.

"Hello… there," he choked, plastering on his warmest smile and hoping that it was enough to distract from his disturbing ineloquence.

"Hi," she replied. Her voice was… tender, soft for the sake of quietness but breathy, like a verbal nudge. She looked older. This was the Elsa to be… and she was something to behold. More than simply attractive, Elsa appeared to be free, confident, formidable-

"May I come in?" she asked, casting a wary glance toward the barracks. Adam blinked, remembering that he did, in fact, have to do something besides marvel.

"As you always can," he said, standing aside to allow her into his "home." He had to close the door quickly, for Silver whinnied excitedly at her return, shoving his head forward in a not-so-subtle request for a pat. Elsa laughed, running her hand along his muzzle. It took him a moment to realize that it was her skin, not the white fabric of a glove, that contrasted the animal's gray coat.

"All your gloves in the wash?" he asked, slowly shuffling toward the ladder. She looked back and forth between him and her own hand, as if she had forgotten that they were exposed at all.

"I… yes," she said, curling her fingers as she tucked them against her belly. She joined him by the ladder, accepting his open hand when he offered to help her up. Her hands were smooth and cool; he didn't much want to let go once she had joined him on the platform. Elsa herself glanced down at her palm as it returned to her side - it was a quick look, almost imperceptible, but he took it as a good sign.

"I brought these," she said, unfolding the basket cloth to reveal a small tray of chocolates. Sometimes bulbous, sometimes square, either drizzled with caramel or sprinkled with even more chocolate, they were the tiniest works of art he'd ever seen. "I've been saving them. I imagine Henry doesn't give you much to choose from."

"Henry? Who is Henry?" He felt an unsettling irritation at her mention of the name. He couldn't quite tell why.

She cocked her head, a questioning smile spreading between her cheeks. "The head chef of the castle. What do you call him?"

"Oh." He suddenly felt a little foolish. "_Monsieur Chapin_," he grunted in the worst impression of a French accent he'd ever heard. "Or Sir, if I'm feeling snarky."

"Oh, he can't be _that_ bad."

"You're not a kitchen boy."

She laughed again, biting her lip as her eyes fell to the basket. "But… would you like them?"

He glanced between her and the confections, a grin forcing itself onto the corner of his mouth. She was running her thumb along the inside of her fingers, like a child that had been sitting for too long. "Of course, Elsa. They look delicious. Thank you."

She smiled, gesturing to the array before him. "Then eat away."

He couldn't help but laugh. "Wow, eager are we?"

She sighed, shaking her head at him. "You have to be difficult, don't you?"

"I didn't say I wanted them _now_."

"And I didn't say they were all for _you_."

She plucked one of them from the basket before he could reply, popping it into her mouth with eyes closed. She hummed quietly, so much so that his curiosity overcame him. After a moment of trepidation, he decided on a dark one with even darker lines of syrup drizzled on its surface. It was bitter at first, and, as he discovered, contained an almond in the middle.

"...Interesting," he mumbled, doing his best to shove the gooey mixture of chocolate and nut into the corner of his mouth. Elsa emerged from her reverie, eying him with worry.

"What is it?"

"I…" He shrugged helplessly. "I honestly have no idea what the big deal is."

The princess gawked indignantly, pulling the basket to her side. "I can't believe you!"

He shrugged. "I can give you and the chocolate a moment, if you want. It seems like I interrupted something."

She issued a cough of laughter, but he could see the redness blossoming in her cheeks. "You don't like it, then?"

"Oh, it's better than biscuits, that's for sure."

"That's… nice to hear." She frowned at the basket before flipping the cloth over it. "I'm sorry. I thought you'd like it."

"Sorry?!" _Here she goes again_. "Elsa, they're _good_. Okay?"

His efforts yielded a half-smile, at least. She sighed and chuckled to herself. "I suppose I'm just shocked to discover that my love for chocolate isn't universal."

"Elsa. I've never eaten better in my life, and that's thanks to you. It's all thanks to you. So don't get ashamed on me now, alright?"

She looked up at him through her eyebrows, offering a barely-perceptible nod and smile. They sat there in silence for a moment, feeling the space of it between them. When he broke it, it felt like a natural movement.

"So… Anna took you to meet Silver yesterday." Elsa laughed and nodded. Her hand hovered over the basket for a moment, but she decided to take another chocolate anyway. "How'd that go?"

"She was surprised by how taken he was," she replied, adding a wry look out of the corner of her eye. "She asked if I'd met him before."

"And?"

"What do you think I said?"

"That you happen to know the stable boy extremely well, you've given him reading lessons, and you've met Silver _multiple_ times on secret late-night visits?"

She sighed, running her thumb along the tips of her fingers. "Not quite. I don't think… I haven't told her."

"I will say, she's not the tightest set of lips in this castle."

She laughed at that. "No, she certainly is _not_. She hasn't changed at all from when we were little."

Adam leaned against a beam, flipping his gnarled wooden flute between his knuckles. Silence fell between them as he thought on his next words.

"If I may ask…" he said softly, as if to avoid frightening her. "Why _did_ you stop seeing Anna?"

Elsa blinked with a hint of surprise, and for a moment he thought she might make a return to her frightened, withdrawn self. To her credit, she handled the question with a calm quietude that he would never have expected months ago.

"I… let's say that you reminded me of what I was missing," she murmured. She gazed at the horses below, seeing something he could not share. It didn't take her long to return from her reverie, however, turning back to him with smile and energy in hand. "And I brought you something. To show you how grateful I am for that."

Adam cocked his head as she removed the chocolates from the basket. There was something beneath them: a package about the length of his forearm, wrapped in thick gift paper and silver string. Elsa's flowing script ran along its length, though he could not discern it at this distance. Her cursive was always difficult for him to make out, no matter how pleasing it was to look at.

"Elsa…" he muttered, warmth rising in his face. "Whatever I did for you - and I'm still not very sure what that is - you've repaid me a million times over. Honestly, the chocolates were more than enough."

"Those were for me," she replied. Her face was more colored than usual, but it reminded him of a warmth more than a burning. She held the box up to him, one delicate hand holding each end. "This is for you. For your birthday. Take it."

He could only blink to that. His birthday. It _was_ his birthday - he'd even forgotten himself. When had he even _told_ her that?

"My… my birthday?"

"You have one, don't you?"

He smirked incredulously. "Well, yeah, but… how did you remember that?"

"I remember a lot of things." She nudged the package slightly closer to him. "Please. Take it."

Adam swallowed, quietly acquiescing to her request. It was light, but probably the largest gift he had ever received. The _only_ gift he'd received, at least since before…

He swallowed again, struggling to make out the words on the box. She was right here, and he'd never expected… she remembered… it was too much. Elsa lowered her head slightly, inserting herself into his downcast gaze.

"Read it," she said. It was a statement, but it couldn't feel less like a command. She folded her bottom lip inward, gently biting it while he worked at it. That small glimmer of anxiety, through all of her calm warmth, managed to clear his mind just enough to manage.

"'_If you can read… this,'"_ he began haltingly, "'_you've… earned… what's in-inside. Happy birth… birthday, Adam.'"_

He blinked, a disbelieving smile spreading across his features of it's own accord. He could feel trace amounts of moisture forming at the corners of his eyes.

"And you have," she said. "Go ahead. Open it."

"I don't know," he murmured, laughing to himself. "The paper's beautiful enough, I don't want to ruin it."

She laughed alongside him as he sighed and gave her what could only be a loving look. Platonic, romantic, they didn't feel very distinguished right now. She was just…

Pulling himself back before he lost it, Adam slid the twine and paper aside. The wrappings faded away, leaving only a thin box of deep brown wood behind. A crocus was engraved on the front.

"You seemed to like mine," Elsa said. "I thought I'd get you one."

His mind stalled, leaving only the beating of his heart and his gratitude. "Elsa, I-"

"That's not it," she cut in, soft as a bed of silken grass.

He couldn't help but wonder how long he'd have to dig himself out of this hole. Suppressing his pride and joy at the same time, he lifted the box's lid. There, sitting in a bed of velvet, matching the rich brown shade of the box, lay an ornate wooden flute.

* * *

><p>Adam licked his lips, but he neither spoke to Elsa nor looked at her as he bored a hole into the gift in his hands. She could feel her heart pounding out of her chest, unable to quell the single rivulet of doubt that still held sway. What if he didn't want it, preferring a flute that he had carved himself? Curiosity soon turned to tension, to the point that she was relieved when he finally spoke.<p>

"Elsa, I…" he shook his head, let out a cough of laughter, then met her eyes. She could see the glimmer of tears in his. "This is the kindest thing anyone's ever done for me."

The pleasant warmth permeating her cheeks turned to a full burn. "I'm glad you like it, but it wasn't so much. I just thought you'd-"

"No, you don't understand." He took her hands in his - his rough, warm hands. As she felt their texture, his real, _unadulterated_ flesh without the shield of gloves, Adam put a close on her mind. He leaned close to her, emerald eyes entrapping. "Thank you. For everything."

There they hung, nary a foot apart, until she managed one last courageous act. She leaned inward, only slightly, hesitant like a child stepping into the sea. But it was enough.

Adam pressed his lips against hers, quickly and suddenly, hands sliding along her arms until they grasped her shoulders. Not knowing what else to do, she placed a hand on his chest, felt the sturdy thudding of his heart. He was so warm, so solid, so strong, so _everything_. In that moment she did not have time to be nervous, or happy, or afraid. She had only sensations, and the faint knowledge that she was sharing them with another person. Another person that she _loved_ for quite some time.

Adam pulled away for a moment, just a little, enough for them to take breath before rocking back together again. She exhaled just a little too hard, a faint whimper escaping her throat. He returned the noise, a low hum, a little louder, a little stronger. In the back of her mind she realized that her right hand had nowhere to go, so she wound it up along the back of his head. His hair was thick, and though it was not soft, it tickled her virgin palms. Adam ghosted across her mouth. She could hear and see his smile, envision it even with her eyes closed. She smiled along with him, unable to believe in this, incredulous at the occurrence and yet acknowledging of the fact that it was happening to _her_. Anna would have found love, her parents had found love, but _she_… she had never expected this, a privilege only for those unburdened by her curse.

His left hand slid downward, tracing behind her breast before settling on her waist. Free of support, he leaned further. She felt her heart pound faster, something welling up in her chest that she couldn't describe. It was so _powerful_, _overwhelming_.

_It's too much_. Her heart was pounding so quickly. She wasn't sure if she liked it anymore… it was amazing, so _alive_, but so much. Adam pressed her back, too heavy for her to support alone. Her hand abandoned the back of his head, landing audibly against the beam behind her. She could hear his breath, feel his heartbeat, pounding with her own.

"_Elsa_…" he breathed, moving along her cheek, breathless, _huge_, _overpowering_…

_Wait_. Elsa felt a tremor run down her spine. She wanted this. But a powerful surge of memory erupted within her. _You can't. It's not safe. He wants you. It's not safe. You can't stop him. Father finds out. You can't. He wants you. You want him. It's not safe-_

Then she felt it. A lumpy, freezing texture began to bubble beneath her right hand. _No..._ It had come back. _No!_ He could see it. _NO!_

"_Wait_!" Her voice was weak with breathlessness, but she mustered it with all her strength. Adam halted in his tracks, hanging for a confused second by her ear. She was still panting when he sat back, bolt-upright and face wrote with worry.

"Elsa? What's wrong?" He looked away from her, wincing in self-loathing. She knew it to be that; she'd worn that face a million times. "No, I know what's wrong. Damn it, I am so sorry. I thought… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that."

She sidled, covering up the icy palm print that she knew she had left. _Conceal it. Don't feel it._

"I…" Adam masked his face with his palm. "I don't know what I was thinking. You were just… and I… gah!"

Elsa swallowed, trying to regain her balance. Adam was furious with himself… she couldn't allow that to happen. She knew how it felt. And he was _wrong_. _You love him. You're just too much of a coward to show it._

"Adam," she murmured in what she hoped was a consoling voice. "It's okay."

On any other day, his expression would have made her laugh. "It… is?"

She nodded. She wanted to take hold of his hands again, but they remained glued to her sides. Her powers were flaring again. She couldn't risk it.

Adam eyed her warily. "Just… too much too fast, then?"

She wriggled, as if it would somehow let her escape from the awkward admittance. "I…"

"It's okay. I'll spare you." he said, holding up a hand to silence her. "I get it. But…" He scrunched his face, grappling with what to say next. "Do I have a chance, at least?"

The question's beautiful candidness was a relief, given the fleeting glances and blushes that had come before. She was happy to nod at that.

"Yes. Very much yes."

Adam smiled, leaning back at least somewhat contentedly.

"Okay then." Adam picked the flute she had given him out of the box, spinning it slowly in his fingers. He admired the craftsmanship for a few seconds, and Elsa felt something like pride in her heart. "Maybe that's enough of me for one night, then. How about we give this thing a whirl?"

Elsa smiled, attempting to shift into a position that did not press the icy handprint to the small of her back. She failed.

"I'd like that."

Adam took a deep breath, peering down the flute's mouthpiece. She averted her eyes, hoping the music would help to calm the storm in her flustered mind, but it did not come.

"And Elsa?"

She brought her eyes back to him, albeit with some resistance, one last time. "I'm glad to hear you say that."

She smiled, the blood rushing back to her cheeks as Adam began to play. The flute was crystal clear, lulling Elsa into a semblance of security. She traced her thumb along the inside of her fingers, marvelling all the while at Adam's mastery of music and wondering what might happen if she revealed the icy mark behind her.


	12. 12: Secrets Are No Fun

**Chapter 12: Secrets Are No Fun**

"That's quite a flute you have there."

The notes wafting through the air ceased with Benedikte's comment. Adam glanced over the side of his platform to where the stable master sat. "Sorry?"

"I don't mean to insult your craftsmanship, but no note so pure has ever escaped a whittling project of yours." Benedikte returned his apprentice's gaze. "Tell me, however did you come by a mahogany flute?"

Adam frowned. "I might be a little hurt by that accusation."

"Accusation, no. Inquiry, yes."

"Like there's a difference." Adam swung his legs over the ledge, gently laying Elsa's gift to rest inside of its box. "I didn't steal it, if that's what you're thinking."

Despite their banter, Benedikte could hardly be blamed for suspicion. Adam's act had not always been so… perfect. He traced a finger along the crocus engraving of the box. _But perfect's a good word for it now._

"Adam Westergard defends himself well, but he has yet to answer my question," Benedikte said, leaning toward Hans with a conspirational sigh. "I can see why you hate this boy so much, my friend. He's impossible, really."

"A _gift_. It was a gift." Adam tried to ignore the grin that had settled on his master's face. Benedikte returned to sewing the saddle draped across his lap.

"A gift? Now that answer I did not expect. Might a prying old man know from whom this gift originated?"

Adam hesitated. The urge to inform Benedikte was strong - he was, after all, proud of the affections that he had won. Even if it hadn't gone exactly as planned. She was Elsa, after all.

"Someone special," he decided, tucking the box under his pillow.

Benedikte chuckled. "Special, hm? Like the innkeeper's daughter was?"

"What?"

"No? Then special like the new servant girl they hired six months ago?"  
>"That wasn't anything, I just-"<p>

"Of course. It's just that you sounded awfully similar when you wooed the tailor's niece."

"_Alright_," Adam snapped with a hopeless laugh. "This one's different. It's serious."

"Is it? I'm shocked. I would think I would have noticed a special young woman traipsing about in here."

Adam slid down the ladder to meet his mentor at ground level. "You may know her better than you think," he offered, toying with a stray bit of straw. "But that's all you're getting out of me."

"Very well then."

Adam arched an eyebrow, surprised by the sudden disengagement.

"Really? No prying? No holding an old guilt trip over my head?"

The old man eyed him from beneath his spectacles, drawing the needle in a long, slow stroke through the saddle leather.

"I could be doing that now."

"_Whew!_"

Their attention was snared by a Silver as he trotted into the stable. Anna was already half dismounted, her twin braids bouncing with his stride. "Did you guys see that? I cleared three hay bails!"

Adam moved to the flank on which she hung. "_You_ didn't. Silver, however, did fantastically."

As expected, Anna huffed as she stepped down - right before her boot caught in the stirrup. Her eyes widened in alarm, but fortunately the situation was well-rehearsed. She pitched into Adam's dryly waiting arms, though an errant wave of the hand caught his cheek with an audible smack. If he wanted a perfect landing, he should have been in the business of catching someone else.

"Woah! Thanks," she said, looking venomously back at her own foot as she extracted it from Silver's saddle. "I swear, these boots are too big for me."

"I think the saddle's too _solid _for you."

"Stop it! You're lucky you caught me," she snapped back at him as he set her down with a chuckle. "Would you mind unsaddling Silver for me? I'm already kinda late."

It seemed to be more of a command than a request, because she was already removing her riding boots. Adam took Silver's reins, rubbing his throbbing cheek while the princess hopped one-footed to the chair upon which her day shoes rested.

"Late for what?" he asked, sharing a knowing look with Silver. "What's got the Princess of Arendelle so excited?"

"Nothing, I'm just starving!" Anna said, resuming her hopping in an attempt to secure her last shoe before she reached the door. Adam smirked as he began to undo the straps of Silver's saddle. Elsa's reappearance around the castle had become common knowledge to the staff at this point. Ravenous stomach though she had, Anna was never this excited for anything except chocolate. He somehow doubted that Henry was making chocolate-covered herring tonight.

Benedikte smirked. "Then enjoy, Princess Anna. I'm sure we'll see you on the morn."

"Just _Anna_ - oh, never mind," she replied with an irritated huff. "G'bye, Adam!"

The stable boy offered an absent-minded wave over Silver's back, though the bright little red-head still got him to smile behind the horse's flank.

Anna swung the door shut behind her, a low click that began a long minute of silence. The horses huffed, Adam swung the saddle onto the rack at the back of room, and Benedikte sewed with the same steady strokes that he had all night.

"So, someone special?"

Adam huffed, smirking incredulously at the ceiling. "Benedikte…"

"You said I may know her better than I think."

The stable boy caught his master's eye, the way his brow tilted toward the stable doors. He laughed, maybe a little overzealously. It was a joke, of course, but it was near enough to the mark that he felt the need to dismiss it thoroughly.

"Yes, you caught me; Anna's and my love is eternal," he chuckled, rolling his eyes.

* * *

><p>Benedikte shook his head, smiling to himself. Part of growing up, perhaps; Adam was rarely so secretive about his flirtations. A good thing, too - he did not always have the best wisdom about these things, charming as he was. Still, he would have resolved to leave the young man alone about it, had he not seen what he did at that moment.<p>

Adam did not notice, busy as he was with Silver. It was so thin and ghostly that it was no wonder that he had failed to notice it until now. A gossamer strand of hair, almost white in its paleness, hung from the stable boy's ladder like a minuscule drape. It swung lazily into the open air as Adam opened the door to Silver's stall, touching it with a breeze that eventually unseated it and sent it drifting earthward. He leaned forward, allowing the hair to settle on his index finger. It was no horse hair, that was for certain.

"You alright?"

Adam was looking at him appraisingly, closing Silver's door behind him. The stable master hesitated at his next words, waiting for the vague idea to finish forming in his head. Any of the staff would have thought it impossible, and perhaps it was, but none of them knew Adam like he did.

"Simply straying into my memories. I find myself doing that a great deal these days. I believe I truly am becoming an old man."

Adam chuckled, running his hand down Silver's muzzle. "You don't give yourself enough credit. Old man? You're sharper than the cooks, and they're half your age."

Benedikte smiled. "And you, young man, give me too much credit."

"Not _that_ much." Adam paced across the stable to rest against a wooden support, wry grin ever-present. "I know a con when I see one. I also know that you don't get nostalgic in the middle of conversations."

He chuckled at that. "A con? I don't know if I would call it that. I am just…" He paused, trying to find the words that could convey the precise blend of emotions he was experiencing. Seeing the energy of love in Adam, even if he was only skirting the subject, brought up a fatherly sense of pride in Arendelle's stable master. It was not merely trouble he could see in Adam's life, though always it strove for a foothold. "I am just trying to believe how far you have come in these two years."

Adam glanced about the room. "What, all the way up to the rafters?"

Benedikte shook his head. "You know that is not what I mean."

"Geez, forget I said anything," Adam sighed, hopping back up onto the ladder. "Ask Hans or something. He'll rat me out in a second."

Benedikte took a second to enjoy the flat stare of reply with which the stallion beheld Adam.

"Hans was always the hardest to win over," he agreed, returning to his sewing. He only had a few more strokes left; it was best to make them count.

* * *

><p>"He seems to be the only being in this castle you <em>haven't<em> impressed."

Adam paused in his ascent. There was something about the way Benedikte said that…

"Do you remember when we first met?" the man continued.

Adam swallowed, turning about on the rung and hanging off the ladder. _Benedikte always sounds like he knows something you don't - that doesn't mean he does_. "I don't think I could forget it."

"I was in the market for some leather sheets I'd ordered. Kai had allowed me to take a few men with me to help load the cart." He looped the thread back once, knotting it and slicing the remainder away with a knife. "That was a sordid scheme between the two of you. Wherever did you find that boy with the reindeer?"

Adam smirked, staring off into a dim corner of the room. He wondered where he was now.

"We were… victims of similar circumstance," he said softly. "Not much more to it than that."

"In any event, it almost worked," Benedikte continued, testing the sewn leather with a few sturdy tugs. "But I know a panicked animal when I see one. He was a good actor, though."

Adam chuckled, finding himself worrying less about what Benedikte knew. "Worked well enough at the time. A wailing reindeer catches eyes."

"And you caught coins all the while."

"Never much." Adam sighed, remembering how many times they'd told themselves that. "It… it wasn't one of my finer moments."

"Oh, but it was." Satisfied with his work, Benedikte lifted the saddle padding and set it on his stool. "You stood in for that boy, even when you could have escaped yourself."

Adam smirked. "You're saying my conscience would have put me in the stocks?"

"It was the only thing that kept you out." Benedikte removed his coat from the hook by the rear door. "I couldn't let a boy with the nobility to sacrifice his freedom for a friend's be put in prison."

For a moment, Adam could not find the words to speak. Benedikte's story had adjusted something that had been lodged in him for a long time. He realized how different he was from what he had been. It was a good different.

"I'm glad you felt that way," he finally managed to say. "God knows where I'd be without that."

"You'd have wormed your way out of it, I imagine."

Adam scoffed. "You know that's not true. I guess… you showed me my place in the world. Where I belong."

Benedikte adjusted the lapels of his coat, offering him a smile of agreement. "And you belong here?"

Adam looked about the stables in the dim, flickering lamplight. It wasn't much, to be sure - but "much" had never been part of the equation. He did have Anna's giggle, though. He had Hans's condescending snuffle, Benedikte's wit. And he had Elsa.

"Of course," he replied, being sure to look his mentor dead in the eye.

Benedikte exhaled, hands still hanging off his coat. He lowered his gaze to the hay-strewn ground, a soft stare that looked beyond the dirt into thought.

"You're a man now, I suppose; you're not the pilferer I met that day. You can make your own choices."

The stable master proceeded to the back door, resting his hand upon the handle without turning it.

"Just remember who you are. Where you are from. Our place in this world affects us all."

Adam cocked his head and set his jaw. This was not Benedikte's best finishing line.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, not sure if he knew the answer or not. Benedikte's face twinged with a smile, an elastic expression that reverted back to musing stillness in a second.

"As I said, you're a grown man now." He opened the door, allowing the red light of dusk illuminate his features. "You can _decide _what that means."

Adam did not reply, allowing the man plenty of time to shut the door behind him. He had a few minutes until Benedikte was well clear of the stables, before Elsa would even think of coming. Tonight, however, he wasn't sure he was ready for her. What was that supposed to mean? What had he _dared_ to mean? Somehow, his mentor's vague words made him angry.

Behind that, however, there was a disquiet. Never in the last two years had Benedikte been wrong, about anything. What, then, was he trying to say?

Hans snorted, sending a stray length of straw curving through the air. Adam shot the arrogant stallion a look of pure ice.

"Shut up," he growled. "I'm trying to think."

The animal was indifferent to his threat, merely continuing to eat as he always did. He clenched the edge of his platform with white knuckles. Was it Elsa? Did he know?

_He's not that clever_, he responded. It was not a strong self-assurance.

Adam's jaw set as he looked up at the stable doors. He was a servant, but he cared so very much about her. There was nothing more powerful than that.

It was a mantra he repeated to himself many times as he waited for his princess to arrive.


	13. 13: Unless You Share With Everyone

**Chapter 13: Unless You Share with Everyone**

"Keep it together. You can do this."

Elsa pressed her fingertips to her temples. Her room, cavernous as it was, felt too small. Her resolve began to waver.

_You don't have to tell him. You've barely made a snowflake in the last two months. _

But she had, no matter how insignificantly. She'd frozen the wall when he kissed her. A passing moment of panic in an eternity of bliss, perhaps, but a moment that mattered. Her powers were quiet, but not silent. She had to do this now; the only other way was back. And she was _not_ going back.

_What if he's afraid of you?_

"He won't be," she told herself. He knew she wasn't a monster. He knew.

_Splsh._

She gasped at the sound. Her foot quickly retreated from the forgotten puddle, no larger than her hand, lying innocently on the floor. Beside it were two neighbors, the liquid remains of her practice snowballs.

Practice. It had been so long since she'd practiced. The hours spent with Anna, making little icy dolls, skating in the ballroom - they were the most distant of memories now. She could hardly remember what it felt like, to let the magic flow freely without it ripping its way out of her. And, much to her chagrin, she _liked_ it this way.

Her first snowball had been a pathetic, malformed thing, like a muscle trying to exert itself after years of disuse. But the icy tingle that rippled along her fingers had been stronger than remembered.

The second had been larger, but too dense and icy. Still, Elsa could not fully describe the satisfaction that she felt, holding a freezing ball that had come with her permission.

The third was the best of all, six inches around. It left a powder of snowflakes on her palms whenever she touched it. It felt like a sugared pastry, fresh and perfect.

Her powers were ready. What a travesty that she was not.

Elsa approached the mirror of her vanity, taking a good long look at herself. Platinum hair slanted across her forehead like a wind-bent fence, pointing rather intentionally at the braid trailing down her left shoulder. Her dress was the same one that she'd been wearing that first night. A night of nightmares that she wished she would never wake up from.

It was as she wanted it. The dress, the hair, it had all been carefully chosen. Why, then, did she not feel beautiful? Her shoulders were too high, like she were walking on needles. She felt out of breath, yet her heart pounded away like it had all the energy in the world. And then there was the trembling, a little nausea…

_You can't do this._

Elsa clenched her jaw, violently protesting the thought. It had paralyzed her to the point of agony for as long as she could remember. No more.

She tried to focus only her own thumping chest. She forced her breathing to slow, ignored the trembling reflection in the mirror, blocked out the incessant doubts.

_I'm going to tell him. I'm going to _show_ him. And he's going to love me anyway._

Slowly, reluctantly, the panic began its retreat.

The knock at the door interrupted all of that.

_He's here._ Her mind seemed incapable of anything but that unhelpful thought. She took one last tremulous breath before she made it to the door.

"Lunch is served," came Adam's familiar voice. She smiled weakly.

"I think you said that yesterday."

"_You_ could try greeting me when _I_ come in."

She laughed at that, opening the door wider for him. "Not a chance. You need the practice."

He rolled his eyes as he set the tray on her desk. Elsa squeezed the doorknob tightly before letting go. Beads of moisture had condensed on the gold leaf, not cold enough to freeze but still far too cold for the peak of a September day.

"I've been practicing the subjunctives," he added, pouring out a cup of tea for them both. "If only I _were_ aware of them the last time you checked my work…"

His ease was infectious, making the eight years of silence seem somewhat surmountable.

Elsa strode past her desk and took a tentative seat on her bedside. Adam paused, the kettle still steaming in his grip .

"Elsa? You alright?"

She gave him the most convincing smile she could, hoping that soon, she would be much more than alright. For now, however, it felt more like she were trapped in a burning building, leaping out a window to safety.

"I'm fine," she lied. "But we're not going to be talking about the subjunctive today."

"Oh?"

There was a hopefulness in his confusion that simultaneously amused and flustered her.

"And not _that_ either."

"_Oh_?"

It was amazing how different the same word could sound.

"Please." She motioned to the spot beside her, shaking her head when he gestured to her tea. Shelving his own beverage, Adam came to sit beside her.

It was strange, feeling the mattress dip with his uncustomary weight. He was much heavier than the last person to climb on her bed. Those emerald eyes fixed themselves upon her own, drawing her in and dizzying her mind. Now she didn't want to tell him the truth for an entirely different reason. She blushed, averting her eyes in an attempt to remain focused.

"Elsa?" Adam placed a hand on her knee, not invasive, merely supportive. "I'm not in trouble, am I?"

His question made her smirk. Even when he himself was the source of her anxiety, he had a strange power to alleviate it.

"No." She sighed at herself. "I'm just not sure where to begin."

"How about the beginning?"

Elsa bit her lip. He did not deserve the burden he was about to receive.

"Adam…" She returned his gaze. "I have so much to thank you for…"

"Elsa-"

"No, please." She raised a hand to silence him. "Not until I'm finished, okay?"

Adam swallowed, and his eyes grew a bit more distant, uncertain. He nodded.

Elsa took one last breath.

"When we first met two months ago… I never told you why I was in the stables. And I never told you why I wasn't speaking to my sister. Do you remember that?"

He shrugged. "If you wanted to tell me, you would have."

"But that's the thing…" She forced herself to look directly at him, no matter how much it increased her trembling. "I did. I always did."

His eyes pinched slightly in confusion. "Elsa…?"

"I need you to promise me something. I need you to promise me that you won't be afraid of what I'm going to show you."

She didn't lie; she did need it. No matter how ridiculous a request it was, she couldn't bear seeing horror on his face.

He eyed her suspiciously, as if he already knew this was no ordinary confession.

"I would never be afraid of you."

She wanted to cry at those words.

_What did you ever do to deserve him?_

"Alright." Her fingers stuttered between one another, unwilling to remain at rest. She wanted to ask him if he really wanted to know, give them both a way out of what was about to happen.

_You want _this._ It's what you've wanted all along._

Her mind had always been against her. She had always tried to block it out, tell herself what she knew to be real. But this, it seemed, was something on which they could both agree.

Elsa raised her palm, letting it hover between them. Her fingers fell into line with no small amount of will, flexing in rhythmic unison as she felt the tingling coolness ripple down her arm.

Whenever she used the magic, she could feel it racing through her. From the deepest, most hidden part of herself, Elsa always had to extract something so essential that even she did not understand it. All she knew was that the intentional use of her powers made her feel like nothing else. _Liberated_ was not the right word; she wasn't sure what was.

What she did know was that, as she passed her left hand over her right, she had never felt more complete. The magic flowed between them, forming first a blue glow, then white, until something very solid began to emerge. The snowball that resulted, simple as it was, stirred in her a vague splinter of pride. It had been years since she'd felt anything similar, and as she cupped the complete white sphere in her hands, it seemed easier to look Adam in the face.

She did not know if she had expected what she saw. He had never looked so blank; no smirk, no concern. Only shock. He gave her no kernel of support, nothing from which she could extrapolate his feelings. Adam had never worn a mask. Not knowing how he felt was more difficult than she'd believed possible.

* * *

><p>He didn't know what to say. Not even a few stupid ideas; <em>nothing<em>. How did you react to something impossible? Elsa had just pulled a snowball out of thin air.

"Was that…" He couldn't believe he was saying this. "_Magic_?"

Elsa laughed a little, a gentle gasp that only her smile could save. "I suppose that's the best word for it, yes." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. He didn't want to bore into her face with his stare, so he looked everywhere else instead, trying desperately to process what was happening. He didn't even know what to ask next.

"I… I've been able to do it as long as I can remember," she said, nervously rubbing the snowball. It didn't seem to be melting on her skin. "Not even Anna knows. Only my mother and father do."

"Why?"

Elsa seemed to cringe at that question. He felt guilty immediately, but he was definitely not backing off from this one.

"She knew, once."She whittled flakes off of the snowball with her thumbs. "We played all the time with my… my powers. But one day, she got hurt." Elsa's eyes focused on something he could not see, trapped, perhaps, in another time. "When she recovered, she didn't remember any of it. And I… we decided that I'd never use them or tell anyone ever again."

But she had told _him_. He too now bore the weight of the royal family. Elsa had a power, a potentially _dangerous _power, and she had trusted him with that. _Only _him.

He was part of this now.

"That's why I never left this place," she murmured, looking about the walls of her room like they were some grand landscape. "I could never control them, not completely. I was afraid I would hurt someone again. But one night, this summer, I…"

Her eyes fell shut, hardened against the pain of some memory. "I couldn't. I couldn't stay here any longer. I tried to sneak into the stables, just to go on one ride, for one night." And then, her eyes were on him. "And then I found you." She smiled, that stunning smile, a thing that for once, he did not have to elicit himself. A fortuity, for he had no words but the utmost honest ones.

"Elsa, I… I don't know what to say…"

She blinked. The smile began to fade, cast downward toward the white sphere in her hands.

"I know it's a lot… I wouldn't know how I'd handle it, myself…" Her hands balled into fists, shattering the snowball into a million powdery flakes. "I had to tell someone. You were… I'm sorry." He saw her face wrench. He had never seen her truly cry before - now, faced with even the full force of his own shock, he could not bear to see it now. "I should never have-"

Adam took Elsa by the shoulders and turned her to face him.

"Elsa." He stared her straight in the eye. He had never noticed how icy blue they were; the intensity of their shade seemed magnified today. Being so close to her awakened powerful feelings - confusing feelings. One thing, however, he could say with all honesty. "It's okay."

So focused on her eyes, he could see every glint and emotion pass through them. A hazy line of water collected beneath her irises, glistening in the sunlight as her features spread into a smile. Elsa let out a choking laugh, pitching her head forward to rest on his shoulder.

"How do you do it?" she asked, shaking her head against him. "How do you know what to say?"

It was a good question. He always did seem to know what to say when he needed to - it had gotten him out of prison. It had gotten him into the kitchens. It had gotten him to her.

And now, finally, he did know what to say. But this time, as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close, as simple as the three words were, as much as he knew they would help, Adam Westergard found that he could not say them.


	14. 14: Foot Temperature

**Chapter 14: Foot Temperature**

Adam flung the stable doors wide. The dull stares of the horses were all that greeted him, absent one member of their typical band. Benedikte was in town to fetch supplies in the early afternoon; never before had Adam been so thankful for the temporary loneliness.

The doors slammed shut behind him, sealing off the chaotic world beyond. The old, familiar smell of hay and dung wrapped around him, a shield. When his hands came off the door, he found that they were trembling.

_Elsa is a witch_. Suffice to say, he'd never expected magic to be real. There were stories about it in far-away lands, to be sure. But they were just that: far away.

_She's no different than before._

He knew that. It wasn't Elsa he was afraid of. How could he be? She'd never hurt him, but panic fought to control him all the same. He felt raw, stripped of something that had been there before. There were no more secrets between them now, and behind those secrets he found something strange.

He was terrified.

In the depths of his heart, he had known that Elsa was hiding something. He could see it in the way she looked at him, in the anxiety she could never totally control. It had made the pursuit necessary, compelled him to care so much for her that she couldn't help but trust him. She had needed him, and he had wanted to be needed. If only he had known what she needed him for. He now carried the greatest secret in all of Arendelle, bound irrevocably to its fate.

"_Our place in this world affects us all."_

Benedikte's words arose like vomit. Did he know? Benedikte had worked in the palace for decades. Had _this_ been his warning?

_No! How the Hell could he know that?!_

_But now you do._

Adam grabbed fistfuls of his hair, clenched his jaw, yearned for calm. What did he have to do?

_You have to do something._

Why? Why did anything have to change? Elsa had put her ultimate trust in him. Her final choice had been made. He, Adam Westergard, had become bound by her secret.

Why, then, did he not feel honored?

_Will you meet the family now? Is Prince Adam on the to-do list?_

"Gah!" He sank to his knees, sending a fist deep into a hay bail. Hans blinked cynically at him.

How could nothing change? What would they do from here? Adam had broken through Elsa's emotional wall, and now he could see only darkness beyond it. Would they simply persist? Forbidden lovers, trapped in limbo until a prince stole her from him? Hide in the same hole until he had no choice but to leave?

And then… what if he did? She had reached out to him. If he left her back in that lonely place… what would she do? Nothing?

_Maybe. Or she could hate you._

Elsa. Hate him. The thought made him sick. Benedikte had had enough power to recreate his entire life; of what was capable the wrath of a princess, or a king? He could see her: Elsa, tears streaming, boring hatefully into his soul as the guards seized him.

_I trusted you,_ she thought. _You abandoned me._

He didn't want to. He'd never…

_You have no choice._

Adam knelt there amidst the chorus of chewing horses, every muscle in his body fighting the emerging truth. It didn't matter if he stood by her or not; Elsa's revelation had opened his eyes to a truth he'd been too giddy to understand. The king and queen would never allow their daughter to wed a dung-shoveler. For him, there was reserved only wrath.

Adam looked about the room, at the living creatures surrounding him. They'd been his companions, his sounding boards. The horses had borne witness to this great drama, utterly ignorant to its tragedy. Surrounded by his most dutiful companions, he had never felt so alone.

Damned if he did. Damned if he didn't. He remembered what that felt like.

_Here you are again. How much have you really changed?_

He turned back toward the looming stallion at his back. Hans seemed indifferent to him as ever, but Adam had always imagined their conversation might go like this.

"You were right all along, you bastard," he growled in the utmost bitterness. The warmth of his tears almost burned. "Try not to look so damn smug."

* * *

><p><strong>Quick Note:<strong>

**I received a couple questions about Adam vs. Hans (The Prince, not the horse), due to Hans's association with his previous incarnation, Admiral Westergard. Hans and Adam are not related, nor are they connected by any other means. Adam does, in fact, draw his last name from a reference to Admiral Westergard. Westergard is not, however, Hans's surname. As a prince, he wouldn't have one; "of the Southern Isles" would be all there is. I know it's a fan convention to give Hans this name, but not in my universe. So Adam has never met Hans, nor are they linked somehow. Thank you all for reading so far! Hope you enjoyed this short scene.**


	15. 15: The Talk

**Chapter 15: The Talk**

"Adam?"

Elsa ventured to knock one more time. One second passed. Two seconds.

Silence.

The princess cast her eyes up to the sky. The Aurora Borealis was dull tonight, walled behind a cluster of clouds, occasionally peeking through a thin spot with all the brilliance it could muster. It was a strange, if ineffective, distraction.

_Is he alright?_ The twinge of worry convinced her abandon politeness.

"Adam, I'm coming in."

Elsa laid her palm to the ground before the doors, glancing to see if any guards were present to bear witness. She was, in fact, alone, so she let the tingling cold race down her fingertips and onto the ground.

Blue rivulets of ice spread scurried underneath the door. She couldn't see it, but she almost _felt_ the column forming on the other side. The pillar of frost rose and rose as she added more energy to her crafting. Its peak soon reached the bolt of the door, lifting it with monotonous determination. She smirked when the wooden plank finally clattered to the ground.

Elsa rose and dusted her hands. It was a comforting thought, to be able to use her powers so openly, though it did not entirely remove her worry for her stable hand.

"Adam?" she asked again, poking her head through the door. She first scanned the platform; perhaps he had fallen asleep. Mustering her courage as she closed the door, she broke the silence with his name once again.

Nothing. She crossed her arms over her belly, determined to suppress the unease bubbling there.

_He's joking. That's all._

"This… isn't funny," she added. As authoritative as she tried to be, her mouth refused to pace the words properly. "Have you seen him?" she asked Silver, cautiously stroking his muzzle and almost hoping he could give her an answer. She checked each rafter above her head, but not shadowy figure returned her gaze. "Please, Adam. You're scaring me…"

"I'm afraid you won't find him here, Your Highness."

The gasp escaping her mouth was absolutely stupendous. The voice that caused it was utterly unfamiliar to her: deeper, raspier, _older_ than what she had come to hear. Its owner slowly cantered out from behind Hans's stall, many yards distant. He was tall and thin, with wispy brown hair tied behind his head. The face on which his glasses rested was creased by old age, but not so much so that he looked decrepit. She stepped back.

His eyes were fixed upon the ground before him. He seemed distant, looking for something only he could see. Had he not spoken to her, she might not have been there at all. Elsa tried to come up with something to say, but all that filled her mind was the instinctive urge to leave. Adam wasn't here. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Not after she had finally…

The electric touch of cold raced up her fingertips again. Elsa started, turning back to the pillar of ice that her hand had brushed. _The pillar of ice_, plain to see as the horses themselves, built up along the side of the door. She had forgotten it until now. She looked back at the man, eyes wide, as frozen with terror as the ice itself. He gazed solemnly at her, offering a sad smile in return.

"You needn't worry, Your Highness. I have learned many secrets in my life; it is rarely my business to tell of them."

His assurance was anything but. Somehow, she knew that her terror was not of being discovered.

"Who are you?"

An inelegant question, but it screamed from the mass of frenetic thoughts filling her brain. The man turned to face her, dropping his shoulders in a bow fit for a prince. His left arm, however, remained folded behind his back.

"Benedikte Hellerud, Your Highness. I have worked these stables for many years. Adam was my apprentice."

The name seemed to slide from her memory, soap on a washboard. She wanted to know everything but his name, where Adam was, what was going on, why _he_ was here instead, but there was a small part of her still too frightened to ask.

"I know that I am not normally the one to greet you. I will not overstay my welcome; I merely wished to inform you of something." Benedikte raised a small package with his left arm. Its dimensions were familiar, a small bit of parchment tied to the front as well. "I'm sure it's for you."

Elsa squeezed herself. The package almost made her want to cringe, so dreadful was its familiarity.

"I had the privilege of your sister's company many times. It is a shame that we have not met in all these years," Benedikte continued, laying the package on a bail of hay. His fingers lingered on it for a few seconds, as if hesitant to let them go. She couldn't be sure in the glare of his glasses, but she thought she saw a familiar pinching at the corners of his eyes. "For I do not think that we will be meeting again. I have submitted my retirement… it is long past overdue." Hans leaned his snout into the old man, who patted it affectionately in kind. Elsa felt detached from the scene, a silent observer as the old man reached for his coat and gave one last look about the place. In the dim light of the lamp, she felt as if she were watching a painting come to life.

"I shall leave you to your business," he finished, offering that same sad smile. It made her want to cry along with him.

Benedikte turned toward the door. Her thoughts swelled in response, a thousand voices ringing their questions off of her skull.

_Where is he?_

_ How did you know?_

_ What did I do wrong?_

"Why did he do it?"

_Leave._ She knew it was more apt, but even now it seemed a despicable word, too ugly for reality.

"I know not," he admitted, once again staring earthward. "Adam is a courageous boy, when the moment takes him. He laughs when he needs to, and works hard when that fails. But…" His voice grew tremulous. The sad smile threaded into his features of its own accord. She had had enough involuntary expressions to recognize them. "He was a son to me."

The words hung in the air, a revelation to himself as well as her. "But I suppose that does not make him perfect. He is as prone to fear as all of us."

She didn't want to believe it. Adam wasn't like her. He wasn't afraid of anything.

_Except you._

* * *

><p>It broke his heart to see her. It must have been much the same to Adam, in the beginning. The way her face fell made Benedikte feel as if he had brought the world down upon her. Perhaps he had.<p>

He had noted his aging carefully, all his life. He remembered when his joints had begun to ache in the morning, or when his eyesight began to fail. His wife's passing had occurred between those times, and his hands had lost their steadiness soon after. Yet as Benedikte turned away from the princess, opening the stable doors to the wide world beyond, he had never felt so old.

"You… you don't have to resign." The princess's voice stayed him yet again. Benedikte turned to her. She had one hand wrapped tightly around the hook from which the bolt hung, the other wrapped about her waist. She looked as if she could barely stand. He could see the sheen of tears in her eyes, a sheen that stung him as well. Even then, Sigurd and Helga's daughter found the strength to care for someone other than herself. "It's not your fault."

Perhaps it wasn't, after all. But then, it very well might have. He had a penance to pay for that. Adam may have nursed his doubt into a mighty growth, but he had not sown the seeds alone.

"Thank you, Your Highness," he replied. "That is good of you. But it is my time. I thought I was doing the best for both of you; this time, however, it seems that my words were not the ones to be heeded."

He looked out into the night beyond. It was dark; clouds dotted the sky, obscuring the aurora behind them.

"It's a shame, these clouds," he murmured, turning to the princess again. "But it would be good to remember that the lights are still up there, no?"

She looked at him, acknowledged his words, but he could tell that she did not listen to them. Perhaps that was expecting too much, for one so young and in such pain. When she averted her eyes, he no longer saw the tremulous fear of doubt in her. He saw something worse.

Benedikte stepped out into the hostile October air, cloaked in the sky's dark disdain.

"Goodbye, Elsa."

The door clicked shut.

* * *

><p>There it was. He was gone.<p>

Elsa lingered in the desolate silence. Even the horses barely moved. She felt strangely light; if she fell to the floor, she might simply bounce off and float.

_He's gone. He's gone._

The thought loomed at her edge, predatorily testing her with occasional bites and pangs of grief. It took a while before she could focus on anything else, and even then it had something to do with Adam's absence.

The package rested where Benedikte had left it. The hastily-folded parchment awakened in her a glimmer of hope. Perhaps he'd been _forced _to leave somehow. Perhaps this would explain.

Elsa did not notice the snowflakes fluttering through the air as she made her way across the stable. All she felt was the pounding of her own heart, the irresistible terror that the package provided.

She turned it over with trembling fingers. Elsa practically tore the wrapping away, hastily discarding it on the ground beside her. That was when she saw it. The air seemed suddenly too thick, clogging her throat like a cork.

It was her box. The engraved crocus, the rich mahogany, preserved exactly as she had given it.

_No… it can't…_

She remembered how much it had weighed when she gave it. She had carried it with her to the stables, held it appraisingly in her hands many times. _This_ was too heavy. There had to be-

Elsa pried the lid of the box open. There it was. The unfamiliar weight.

Her flute was no longer alone. There, lying in the felt slot alongside it, was a hollow, whittled length of wood. It may not have been perfect, but she recognized the haphazard holes, the slight bend. Adam had left some trace after all.

_That can't be it_. She looked helplessly about. The horses shook themselves, fending off the room's declining temperature and ignoring her. A whimper of frustration escaped her. She wanted to scream.

Then she saw it: crumpled among the wrapping parchment was a smaller bit of paper. Even in the cold of the moment, she could see the telltale signs of inked letters staining its fiber. She snatched the note like a starving child, unfurling it as fast as her trembling hands allowed.

It was him. The letter was short; she read it in seconds, so practiced was she at inspecting his handiwork. That made it all the more bludgeoning.

_A man without music is not a whole man. I don't deserve either of these. I don't deserve you. I can't do it. I am so sorry, Elsa._

Something hot began to run from her eyes. Elsa put a hand to her mouth, unsuccessfully choking the sob that clawed its way out. She could see the parchment begin to curl, though whether her tears were simply distorting it she couldn't know. The world began to fill with things she couldn't bear to see. The parchment crystallized and shattered in her hand. Snow whirled about her. Frost crept out from under her, encasing the hay and making rigid the mud. The horses whinnied in anxiety, pounding the frozen earth with their hoofs. Only Hans did not move, merely grunting his disdain for this whole affair.

The world was filled with things she had hoped her eyes would never see again. So Elsa shut them, hugging herself on her lonely island of frost.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm sorry. I really am.<strong>


	16. Epilogue: Well Now They Know

**Epilogue: Well Now They Know**

"All aboard for Weselton!"

The crier's disembodied voice echoed to the hidden side of the dock, where rickety assemblies of cargo rested on equally rickety planks of wooden ground. Adam peered out from his hiding place among them. There were only three men guarding the ship's cargo hold, and of the three, only the leanest had his hands free of crates.

"Hurry up you two, get that freight loaded on!"

The two burlier sailors, hair a matching shade of carrot-ginger, grunted their grudging assent to the first mate. At least, Adam assumed he was the first mate - he could have been a particularly brazen cabin boy. Hard to tell much, trying to spy from a haphazard pile of crates.

"Last call! All aboard!"

Weselton. It fit the description: far away, home to a great deal of commerce and work, and devoid of a single citizen that gave a damn about one's history.

Now all he had to do was get there.

_You could have sold the flute. Would've paid for five tickets._

He'd considered it. Elsa's gift was well-made: elegant, curved, full of beauty and kind sentiment. Like her. Which was exactly why he hadn't considered it for very long. He knew that he couldn't. Their time together might have been pointless, but it was also priceless. He would be a fool to think that he could pawn it off, and he'd be damned if he stole from her.

_I'm a coward, not a thief,_ he thought. Benedikte hadn't cured his worst ailment, but he'd made an honest man of him yet.

_Benedikte…_

_No. You are leaving. This is the only way._

Adam ground his teeth. He was angry, but he wasn't sure at what.

_Better put it to good use._

The ex-stable hand peered out at the dwindling freight that remained to be loaded. There was only one large enough to contain him.

"There we go!" His eyes shot to the first mate, following his lackeys into the ship's hold with a running mouth. "If you don't have this loaded by the time all the passengers are aboard, I'll have you scrubbing the spoons until they…"

Adam toned him out, just as he imagined the "lackeys" felt compelled to do. He kept talking until he was well out of earshot, walled up within the hold with the other two.

For now.

Adam bolted onto the dock, seizing the largest crate immediately. Nights of climbing the rafters silenced his footsteps. Hours shoveling hay strengthened his fingertips enough to pry the lid of the crate free. And years of living in Arendelle's market allowed him to recognize the country's most prominent export within.

_Blankets_. On any other day, he might have smiled at the luck. Today, however, he felt only guilty.

He worked quickly, tossing armfuls of the pine green and violet fabrics off the dock and into the water. They floated lazily under the dock's stone embankment, drifting out of sight like shamed puppies. Soon he had a plentiful hollow of blanket-padded space, the stowaway's ideal hiding place.

_Quickly. Get in._

Seconds later, and there he was. Standing idly over his only means of escape, a dog too frightened to eat its dinner.

_You don't have much time! Come on, go!_

Adam acknowledged the thought. It was true, but it didn't feel… right. He looked about at the dock's openness. He was standing in a sea of planks, bordered by a mountainous ship and hills of cargo. The rumble of boarding passengers was distant, unreal, on the other side of all those boxes. He was alone.

But there was one thing the ship did not block out. There, looming above the stone shore of Arendelle, above the ship's many masts, was the great spire of Castle Arendelle. Its turquoise was angrily bloodied in the morning sun, jabbing at the sky for all to see. He was neither responsible for the castle's building nor the color of the sun, but Adam felt guilted by the thing nonetheless. He wondered just how much anger lingered there now that he was gone.

Benedikte would have noticed first, of course. Elsa might have discovered that night; if not, certainly by lunch today. He hoped that she _was _angry, that she hated him. Not only would he deserve it, but maybe she wouldn't be sad enough to cry.

He wasn't happy that he had avoided it - he simply knew that he couldn't bear it if he did. There would be many things he could never see again: Anna's spontaneous, if creative, falls; Benedikte's amused gazes; Hans's disdainful snorts; Silver's giddy whinnies; Olaf's benign ignorance. Elsa's quivering laughter, hand uselessly held up in some effort to mask her mirth - a hand that had withheld a magic more stupendous than he could have ever imagined. Too stupendous.

"Oh, Elsa…" he murmured, naught but the ocean breeze his audience. "It's better this way. You'll see."

He felt the unwelcome warmth of tears brim in his eyes. The first mate's endless voice was getting louder, nearer. Adam took one last look at his sunlit home, shamefully warped and twisted by his tears. Then he hopped into the crate, curling as tightly into himself as possible. He reached over the edge and grabbed the lid.

It was better this way. Elsa would move on, find a wonderful prince, one that cared for her and loved her. And, one day, when she had the courage to show him, he would not be a coward.

Not like Adam Westergard.

* * *

><p>"Elsa? I kno - I'm pretty sure you're in there."<p>

It had only been a few weeks - too soon for Elsa to stop coming down to dinner. It had been so _wonderful_. Why would she ever want to stop?

This was too familiar to Anna. She wanted to scream, to force open this damn door and knock some sense into her sister.

But she didn't. She balled her fists and did her best to act like a princess. Elsa had spoken with her. She just needed to be nice and not get angry and maybe that would work. Because things were different now.

"Elsa? Please come down to dinner. It's much nicer when you're there, and Mother and Father told me that they like it when you're there too."

Did she hear a breath? "Elsa?"

Nothing. Anna felt a little breeze escape from under her sister's door. It hadn't seemed that cold out earlier tonight…

Had she jumped out the window?

"Elsa…" Anna swallowed, "Please answer me. I don't… I don't like it when you ignore me."

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.

Silence.

Anna squeezed her eyes shut. _I didn't ask for some stupid tears!_ She turned down the hall, back to the dining room with parents that _loved_ her, that didn't play around with her feelings. She was fed up with stupid old-

"Anna?"

"Elsa?!" One of her braids may or may not have smacked her face as she spun. "I'm here! I mean… I'm here. What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry… I was asleep." Something was different about her voice. It sounded hoarse, like her throat was skipping every other letter. "I don't think I can come to dinner tonight. I'm not feeling well."

"...Oh." Anna bit her lip. Elsa wasn't feeling well! Of _course_! What else could it have been? "Do you… do you want me to get you anything? I can bring your plate up if you want!"

A pause. "Thank you, Anna. I'm… I'm just not hungry right now. Maybe tomorrow night."

"O-okay," was all she managed to come up with. "You sure you don't want anything?"

"Yes." Another breeze, stronger this time, assaulted Anna's feet.

"You shouldn't keep the window open, if you're cold you can't-"

"_I'm fine, Anna_." The phrase was punctuated by another gust. A pulsing ache suddenly ricocheted through Anna's skull, causing her to wince and back away from the door.

Then, it was gone, like a dream. Anna removed her hand from her forehead, now able to see the monolithic door in its entirety. Suddenly, she wanted to cry again, only she couldn't. What would Elsa think of that?

"Alright, then… I'll leave you alone," she murmured, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she walked down the hall. "Feel better."

She was too far down the stairs by the time Elsa replied.

"Thank you, Anna."

* * *

><p>Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and months turned into years, but Elsa never came down to dinner again. Anna was angry at first, then sad, and then, as she always had been, forgiving. Life went on in Castle Arendelle much as it once had. The new stable master was not nearly as kind as Benedikte had been, always seeming bothered by her. Anna eventually stopped riding the horses. She asked Kai why Benedikte and Adam left; he only ever said that it was their business, and their business alone.<p>

Anna never thought to ask her parents the same question, and it was not long before she no longer had the chance. A simple visit to the nation of Corona quickly turned disastrous, and the princesses of Arendelle found themselves suddenly alone in the world. Only they knew, however, just how alone that was.

Anna mostly healed, doing what she could to stay busy. She forgot Elsa's promise to come down, instead choosing the engage in other, healthier efforts - namely roof climbing and, overhearing the kitchen staff on the lunacy of the idea, skinny-dipping by the castle's rocky foundation. Gerda had not found it as courageous as she did.

But Elsa did not forget that promise. It burdened her every day. Her powers, ever a barrier, never did calm down after Adam left. Almost every day she wondered: _why_? She just needed to hear it from him. But whenever her mind strayed down that path, the ice followed. Sometimes it happened every hour; as the years drew on, she occasionally managed not to think about it for a whole day. But she never forgot, even on her birthday. _Especially _on her birthday. So Elsa toughed it out, avoiding everyone she could, for the next four birthdays.

Unfortunately, she did not have that privilege on the fifth.

* * *

><p>"And so I grab him by the shoulder and tell him that we have to make haste, the summit is in twenty minutes! But he tells us the summit is right here, in the pub!" Cornelio explained, glancing at Jean as he related their story.<p>

"Naturally, we are beside ourselves," Jean chimed in, his French accent reminding her of a leaf in the wind - zipping from this word to that, stirred to great passion on some syllables and almost ignoring the rest. "How do you convince an Irishman to abandon his beer and put on his pants?"

Elsa smiled, pretending to listen to their story with greater interest than she had available. Nothing matched the combined zeal of storytellers and champagne. Her thoughts, however, were with Anna.

_"I wish it could be this way all the time."_

_ "Me too…. but it can't."_

_ "Well… why not? I mean-"_

_"It just _can't_!"_

_It's not even her fault. What kind of queen are you if you can't even-_

"Let me just, uh, get around you there…"

The newly crowned queen raised her eyebrows slightly, glancing over her shoulder to confirm that it was, in fact, Anna. Her sister though it was, indelicately weaving her way through the crowd, Elsa was most surprised to find that she was not alone. A tall man with crisply combed hair and a white jacket trailed behind, a smile fit for the gallery lightening his face. Prince, no doubt about that.

Elsa turned back to the gentlemen engaging her.

"It seems my sister has need of me," she said, offering an apologetic smile. "I would love to hear the rest of your story later tonight?"

The men glanced between one another, more than a bit disappointed.

"But of course, Your Majesty," Jean acceded, dropping with Cornelio into a slight bow. "Until later, then."

Elsa smiled, nodding her consent before turning to her sister.

"Elsa!" Anna practically halted as soon as their eyes met, dropping into a placating courtsey. "I mean, _Queen_, me again, uh…" She looked back at the prince, who stepped up to take her arm as if on cue. "May I present Prince Hansof the Southern Isles_._"

Elsa and Hans exchanged nods of acknowledgment, all very well and formal and polite. What followed, however, was not exactly par for the course.

"Your Majesty…" Hans added, dropping into a proper bow. "We wou-"

"We would like…" The two of them paused, stumbling into one another's sentences, and Elsa could not help but smile. Anna deserved to meet someone like this.

"Your blessing…"

If they began courting, she might even find a way out of this life.

"Of our marriage!"

_WHAT?_ "M-marriage?!" she sputtered. Did they hear themselves?

Anna's reply was a poorly-concealed squeak. "_Yes!_"

Okay, they did. That was even worse. She stalled for time.

"I'm sorry, I'm confused…"

"Well, we haven't worked out all the details ourselves-"

_Anna._

"We'll need a few days to plan the ceremony-"

_You want._

"Of course we'll have soup, roast, and ice cream-"

_To get married._

"Wait - would we live _here_?"

"_Here?!_" Elsa's thoughts could stand the silence no longer.

"_Absolutely!_" Hans chimed in.

_Oh no…_

"Anna…"

Elsa tried to get a word in, to slow all this down, but Anna was already on the next level.

"_Oh_, we can invite all twelve of your brothers to stay with us!"

"What? No, nononono-"

"Of course we have the room, I don't know if some of them have-"

Okay. Enough.

"Anna, _wait_. Slow down."

Her sister looked at her as if she'd forgotten that she was even there. To an extent, she didn't feel she had the right to intrude _now_, of all times. But it was obvious that someone had to.

"Nobody's brothers are staying here, nobody is getting married."

Anna's eyes relaxed, growing wider, if still confused. She took a step forward, and Elsa felt her heart quicken. "Wait, what?"

_Oh no._ Elsa knew what followed that feeling. She looked at Anna, at Hans. His hair was brownish red, terracotta. _No._

This had to stop. Anna had to know where this path led. Where it had led _her_.

"May I talk to you, please? _Alone_?"

Elsa tried to give Anna the most communicative look she could. This was urgent. This was not about Hans.

Anna missed it.

"No…" Anna retreated from her, finding solace once again on Hans's arm. Her choice was him. "Whatever you have to say, you can say to both of us."

And what should she have expected? Years of ignoring, unfulfilled promises. What chance did she now stand against this man, who gave her sister hope of a better life than she could ever provide?

Fair enough. Maybe Anna was right about her. But she was _not_ right about Hans. Elsa stood as tall as she could, determined to be, if a sister was impossible, a queen.

"Fine." Her body rebelled, telling her not to be calm. This time, however, she was its master. She would not let it overtake her tonight. "You can't marry a man you just met."

Anna resisted, gripping Hans tighter. "You _can _if it's _true love._"

"Anna, what do you know about true love?"

"More than _you_." Elsa wavered, stung. Her heart rate increased, incensed by memories of gifts given, secrets passed, lessons taught. A kiss shared. "All you know is how to shut people out!"

Elsa swallowed. No. She was _wrong_. She'd known love, _been_ loved. And lost it.

Her emotions were fighting harder. Her hands were cold. She couldn't do this.

"Y-you asked for my blessing, but my answer is no," she managed. _Keep it together._ "Now... _excuse me_…" _Conceal, don't feel…_

She started heading for the door, ignoring everything about the couple before her. _Don't go too fast, don't let anyone notice…_

"Your Majesty, if I may ease your-"

"No!" She regretted the snapping at Hans the instant it escaped. The ameliorating tone she tried to employ after did little to help. "You may not, and I-I think you should go."

Josef was standing vigilantly behind them. She had never been so relieved to see a guard.

"The party is over," she said, having not the heart to look up from the floor. "Close the gates."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

She was closer to the door now. Once she got there, she could have peace. No stories from Cornelio and Jean, no ludicrous marriages from Anna. Just her and her memories, the good and the bad, like every other birthday.

"What?! Elsa, no no - _wait_!"

Anna's voice seemed so distant already; it was a shock when her sister's hand latched onto hers. Elsa gasped as her glove slipped away in Anna's fingers.

_ Your glove._

Her skin prickled at the unfamiliar embrace of air. She recalled the last time she had felt it, forming a snowball in her hands, widening the eyes of another terracotta-haired-

_No!_ "Give me my glove!" she snapped, desperately reaching out for Anna's prisoner. The younger girl retreated, blind to the surging storm in her sister's heart.

"Elsa please, _please_! I can't _live _like this anymore!"

It stopped. Skipped a beat, overtaken by a handful of simple remembered words.

_I can't do this. I am so sorry._

Slowly, of their own accord, Elsa's hands retreated from Anna. They curled into her stomach, trying to hold it all in. In that moment of painful serenity, Elsa found her words.

"Then… _leave_."

_Like he did._

Anna's posture changed. Her eyes grew wide, _hurt_. Why did she have to make that face? Hadn't all these years been about not hurting her?

_Enough_. She was through. She couldn't be the one to hurt Anna after sacrificing _everything_ not to.

Not that she had anything left to sacrifice.

Elsa turned toward the door, arms bundled in front of her like she was ill.

"What did I ever do to you?!"

All of their voices rebounded in her skull.

_What did I ever do to you?! Just tell me that, and I will go away forever!_

_ You'll be fine, Elsa._

_Goodbye, Elsa…_

_I can't do this. I am so sorry._

"_Enough, Anna_," she managed. She could barely speak without her voice trembling, keep her eyes open without shedding tears.

They'd all left. She didn't care if Anna married Hans. It was better this way. It was better if they all left. If they all joined Benedikte and Adam and her mother and father. They were all better off without her.

"No, _why_? Why do you shut me out? why do you shut the _world_ out?" Anna's voice rose in volume, the second time she had shouted at her in all her life. "_What are you so AFRAID of?!"_

Elsa spun around, and for a second she saw them. Mother and Father, cautionary and forbidding. Anna, only thirteen, angry and kicking her door. Benedikte, so weary and pitying. And, for a second, Hans wasn't a prince: he was a stable boy, a bit shorter, hair longer, eyes wide with fear.

_You're alone._

So she shouted at all of them, even that nasty, _nasty_ demon in her head.

"I said _ENOUGH!"_

The air filled with spiky crackling. A wall of icicles exploded to life right before her eyes, jabbing the patrons back, demanding that she be left in peace. She didn't even feel the magic, it just happened, and for a second she wondered if someone else had done it.

Sadly, if it had, they wouldn't all be looking at her.

Elsa stared at her bare hand, betrayed. It still glimmered with a few faint traces of magic. She could feel all their eyes on her, wide with shock and fear. She looked up at Hans, far cry from a stable hand, thought with a familiar lack of warmth in those widened eyes. Anna, stunned finally into silence, the pleading look still on her face, forgotten. Elsa couldn't look too long at that. Maybe Anna was better off without her, but she couldn't be _afraid_ of her. She _couldn't._

But then, the only person she had shown _had _been afraid. Even when she'd thought it impossible, he ran away. The damage had never unraveled, never gotten beyond his confidence. But Adam hadn't failed to see the monster that she was.

And now, everyone knew.

* * *

><p><strong>I've had gaps. I've had hiatuses. But finally, we are done! If this story seems sad, don't forget the movie that follows it!<strong>

**It's been a great experience writing this story. It's been a test of my ability to stick to a project, but I couldn't leave you guys hanging forever.**

**Thank you to everyone that took the time to leave reviews. Whether they were short or long, they gave me a reason to keep writing.**

**If you want more, check out the other _Frozen_ story on my author page. _The Ice God_ is a continuation of the movie, albeit covering very different themes from this story. I have some plot restructuring to do for that, but I will be updating again as soon as that is done. Check it out if you wish!**

**Thanks again for reading, everyone. Oh, and have a happy Halloween!**


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